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Post by LunarOrbit on Feb 5, 2009 17:02:27 GMT -4
But you don't mind interfering in the internal politics of other countries. (Notice the smiley? I put that there to magically remove the insult). Using your economic or military strength to force smaller countries to submit to what you want doesn't make you right, it just makes you a bully.
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Post by trevor on Feb 5, 2009 17:37:53 GMT -4
I'm not suggesting that the rest of the world gets to say who runs the U.S. My point was that many people understand that what you do and who leads you concerns them directly. After having Bush in power for so long, and considering his record of warmongering and sabre rattling, people saw Obama as a breath of fresh air. No body gives a crap about U.S. domestic policy outside the U.s. that's human nature. What goes on inside the U.S. stays inside but what goes on outside affects the whole world.
I can understand why people might fear the power the U.S. has, but I think those who fear it will be turned against them generally either don't really understand the American people or deserve to have it turned against them because they've made themselves our enemies. That's fear of the other raising its ugly head again. And I do feel the world media tends to treat the U.S. unfairly - playing up our few failures much more than our many successes. Bad news is what travels and what people pay atetntion to.
Don't tar everybody with the same 'poisoned by the world media' brush. I think you might find that there are alot of non Americans who understand exactly what the US and its people are like. And your comment sounds a little like 'If you're not with us you're against us'.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Feb 5, 2009 18:04:38 GMT -4
It seems like you're saying though in your last post that the American attitude toward other cultures and nations is basically "it's my way or the highway". I'm saying that when it comes to internal American affairs like who gets to be President that it's our way.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Feb 5, 2009 18:09:17 GMT -4
Don't tar everybody with the same 'poisoned by the world media' brush. I did say "generally". You called President Bush a warmonger and accused him of saber rattling in this same post, both stereotypical characteristics that are popular in depictions of him but which don't match the reality of the man very well.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Feb 5, 2009 18:11:46 GMT -4
But you don't mind interfering in the internal politics of other countries. (Notice the smiley? I put that there to magically remove the insult). When they start beating down their neighbors we sometimes feel the need to do something about it, especially when we feel they might threaten us as well. Surely what makes it right is whether we are helping people in the end. Iraqis no longer need fear that Saddam Hussein is going to gas their village, or that one of his sons is going to pick a girl off the street to have some fun with them, or even anymore if Al Qaeda is going to blow them up while they stand in line to vote.
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Post by RAF on Feb 5, 2009 20:37:13 GMT -4
Surely what makes it right is whether we are helping people in the end. Why am I not surprised that you believe that the ends justify the means.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Feb 9, 2009 18:05:38 GMT -4
Looks like there will be no change at all from the Obama administration on the subject of rendition: In fact, the current policy of the rendition was adopted in the Clinton years, and hasn't changed much since.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Feb 23, 2009 17:36:41 GMT -4
From the New York Times today.
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Post by LunarOrbit on Feb 24, 2009 23:41:59 GMT -4
Asking The Pentagon to report on the conditions at Guantanamo is like asking Exxon to rate their own environmental impact. Bias?
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Feb 25, 2009 11:59:12 GMT -4
Oh, but this is the GOOD Pentagon under President Obama, not the BAD Pentagon under President Bush.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Mar 2, 2009 12:51:08 GMT -4
President Obama's State Department (or should that be Hillary Clinton's State Department?) learned the same lesson late last week what the Bush State Department did back when Collin Powell was running things. They withdrew from the UN conference on racism, long a center for anti-Israel, anti-westernism tirades against free speech. It's not really surprising that the conference has such problems, given that the chair of the preperatory committee is Libya, with Cuba and Iran as vice chairs.
EDIT: Oh, and Obama is following Canada's lead on this for once. Canada already said they wouldn't participate in the conference.
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lonewulf
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Post by lonewulf on Mar 3, 2009 13:16:06 GMT -4
But you don't mind interfering in the internal politics of other countries. (Notice the smiley? I put that there to magically remove the insult). Using your economic or military strength to force smaller countries to submit to what you want doesn't make you right, it just makes you a bully. Dominance is generally an accepted methodology of dealing with other states in International Relations. While Reciprocity and Identity are two other methodologies, they also have their own problems. I can probably think of a few times where Dominance would be accepted by some in this thread, and not accepted by others. I don't agree with Bush, and the War on Iraq, but that does not mean that I would want to stay out of the business of all States. I'd rather be seen as a bully after preventing a genocide, than as one that kept to himself while allowing it.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Mar 18, 2009 13:58:26 GMT -4
A familiar picutre is now emerging in President Obama's approach to the war on terrorism: excoriate President Bush, then make a few cosmetic changes to his policies while keeping them almost entirely intact. The latest example is the Justice Department's filing with the the D.C. district court. The brief is a solid legal argument for detaining enemy combatants and those who "substantially supported" al Qaeda or the Taliban indefinitely and without legal charges while leaving "substantial" completely open to interpretation. The only substantial difference from the Bush position is that the brief refuses to call them enemy combatants, using instead "individuals captured in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations" or "persons who [the President] determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, and persons who harbored those responsible for the September 11 attacks." Oh, and the Obama brief rests entirely on the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Act, wheras the Bush administration in earlier cases cited that act and also the President's inherent war power under the Constitution. Not that it disavows those powers.
That makes the number of Bush anti-terror policies that Obama has preserved quite lengthy - interrogation, surveillance, rendition, state secrets, and now detention.
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Post by RAF on Mar 18, 2009 18:45:39 GMT -4
That makes the number of Bush anti-terror policies that Obama has preserved quite lengthy - interrogation, surveillance, rendition, state secrets, and now detention. So why do you complain about Obama?? From what you say, he is doing just what Bush would do. Shouldn't that make you happy??
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