The night is still young...
I wouldn't normally even have posted to a political thread. They're flame wars waiting to happen.
When it comes to elections - anywhere - most voters don't listen to arguments, they just get into them. Plus, perspectives depend on your news sources as well as your preconceptions.
When people have different "facts" there is little discussion possible.
The consensus among people who've had access to both US and non-US media seems to be that the US media suck big time. With the papers being better than the networks.
Elections aux USA
I can get both but I find US media cridge worthy most of the time, a lot of it seems to be dumbed down which I'm sure some will say because all American's are thick but I don't buy that. I don't know why but the US media seems intent on proving the steriotype true, it is so biased that it's unbeliebable. It's not like our media is unbiased but the slice of the world that the US get on their stations is so slanted that it's practically vertical.
Yeah, there are better places to discuss political stuff here. But now, that so many people wrote i put a note here as well.
I guess in america its not different from all over the world, first they tell you that they will make goldnuggets rain from the sky and then it only rains poop. Some are more, others less horrible but in the end all of them are just liars. Also mostly these guys have no know-how about what they do. They come from jobs which are not the best jobs to shove around billions of Euros or Dollars or whatever. Schroeder, the german chancellor for example was a lawyer in his former life.... good for laws, not good to run a multi billion Euros country. Bush proofed in his former job, that moving money is not his most talented side, when he owned, i guess, the most unsucessful oil company ever. In germany we say, if you are intelligent and want to make a lot of money, then you go and work in the free economy. If you are stupid and want to make money you get a politician.
What is strange to german people is that both the candidates always want to appear as strong believers in god..... but hey.... they are politicians and they have to live against the bible every day. They have to lie, give the order to let others kill people, what is making them responsible for it. Well, i am not a big believer but i know that the bible says that this is not allowed.
And sure a lot of people are interested in what happens in america. Bush started a war right in the backyard of europe. For americans this is maybe not understandable but the danger about terrorist attacks is much higher in europe than in the US because terrorists dont need a ship or a airplane to get to europe, they can walk if they dont own a car and americans know that a border is hard to control.... think about how many mexicans immigrate illegally. Airports and seaports instead are easy to control.
Also bush was parting america into two pieces (as far as i can judge it from the news here, correct me if i am wrong). Shouldnt a president do everything possible to represent as much citizens as possible? He is the elected representative of ALL americans but he acts like hes only the president of one half.
Now only one thought is left. If bush is elected again, living is much easier for germany as if Kerry is elected. To say no to bush (Quotes from his administration were: germany is old europe, germany is a part of the axis of weasels etc. ) is quite easy. But what if Kerry wants to have some german troops in Iraq?
So long my thoughts about all this sad game called live on earth.
Ciao
I guess in america its not different from all over the world, first they tell you that they will make goldnuggets rain from the sky and then it only rains poop. Some are more, others less horrible but in the end all of them are just liars. Also mostly these guys have no know-how about what they do. They come from jobs which are not the best jobs to shove around billions of Euros or Dollars or whatever. Schroeder, the german chancellor for example was a lawyer in his former life.... good for laws, not good to run a multi billion Euros country. Bush proofed in his former job, that moving money is not his most talented side, when he owned, i guess, the most unsucessful oil company ever. In germany we say, if you are intelligent and want to make a lot of money, then you go and work in the free economy. If you are stupid and want to make money you get a politician.
What is strange to german people is that both the candidates always want to appear as strong believers in god..... but hey.... they are politicians and they have to live against the bible every day. They have to lie, give the order to let others kill people, what is making them responsible for it. Well, i am not a big believer but i know that the bible says that this is not allowed.
And sure a lot of people are interested in what happens in america. Bush started a war right in the backyard of europe. For americans this is maybe not understandable but the danger about terrorist attacks is much higher in europe than in the US because terrorists dont need a ship or a airplane to get to europe, they can walk if they dont own a car and americans know that a border is hard to control.... think about how many mexicans immigrate illegally. Airports and seaports instead are easy to control.
Also bush was parting america into two pieces (as far as i can judge it from the news here, correct me if i am wrong). Shouldnt a president do everything possible to represent as much citizens as possible? He is the elected representative of ALL americans but he acts like hes only the president of one half.
Now only one thought is left. If bush is elected again, living is much easier for germany as if Kerry is elected. To say no to bush (Quotes from his administration were: germany is old europe, germany is a part of the axis of weasels etc. ) is quite easy. But what if Kerry wants to have some german troops in Iraq?
So long my thoughts about all this sad game called live on earth.
Ciao
Life is expensive..... but a trip around the sun is included.
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Guest
Good comment Kande, but you are missing some important points:
1. Europe doesn't hate Americans. Anybody can make mistake. After Bush was elllected for the president, nobody could know what will happen. But, if Americans choose Bush again, they will send strong message telling us that Americans support what he is doing around the world. At this point, Europe will start to hate Americans.
2. Bush started the war for wrong reasons. He told to Americans that Saddam had weapons of the mass destruction. There was no WMD. Then he tried to justify war by saying "Saddam had connections with Osama Bin Laden". There was no connections. Then he tried to justify war saying "World is much better without Saddam". Yes, it is. Any dictator has to be removed from the planet Earth. But, this has to be done by people living under dictator. And, who want to spend billions of the US dollars just to remove some local maniac?
But then, why Bush rushed into war?
1. Because Irak have biggest oil reservs on this planet and America dosn't.
2. Because Europe expected to become No. 1 world economy until 2010. This Europian plan was to dangerous for reach people standing behind Bush. The plan was:
1. To divide UN at first step. This was easy. Germany and France, as EU leaders, was against war, because they have invested money into Irak and they exchanged technology for oil from Irak.
2. To divide Europe. This was also easy. Some countries in europe are traditionally on USA side. First England, then Italy and finally Spain. Some other poor countries like Poland or Bulgeria recived couple of billions of US dollars to support Bush. Rich European countries to, but with bigger role in "rebuilding" Irak.
1. Europe doesn't hate Americans. Anybody can make mistake. After Bush was elllected for the president, nobody could know what will happen. But, if Americans choose Bush again, they will send strong message telling us that Americans support what he is doing around the world. At this point, Europe will start to hate Americans.
2. Bush started the war for wrong reasons. He told to Americans that Saddam had weapons of the mass destruction. There was no WMD. Then he tried to justify war by saying "Saddam had connections with Osama Bin Laden". There was no connections. Then he tried to justify war saying "World is much better without Saddam". Yes, it is. Any dictator has to be removed from the planet Earth. But, this has to be done by people living under dictator. And, who want to spend billions of the US dollars just to remove some local maniac?
But then, why Bush rushed into war?
1. Because Irak have biggest oil reservs on this planet and America dosn't.
2. Because Europe expected to become No. 1 world economy until 2010. This Europian plan was to dangerous for reach people standing behind Bush. The plan was:
1. To divide UN at first step. This was easy. Germany and France, as EU leaders, was against war, because they have invested money into Irak and they exchanged technology for oil from Irak.
2. To divide Europe. This was also easy. Some countries in europe are traditionally on USA side. First England, then Italy and finally Spain. Some other poor countries like Poland or Bulgeria recived couple of billions of US dollars to support Bush. Rich European countries to, but with bigger role in "rebuilding" Irak.
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Guest
And third, nothing less important:
To spread fear around world about terorist attacks which will stop or reduce western economies, primary European. On other hand, China and India as fast developing countries with big population will increase oil demand cousing oil prices to go high. This process will continue and oil will never be cheap again.
To spread fear around world about terorist attacks which will stop or reduce western economies, primary European. On other hand, China and India as fast developing countries with big population will increase oil demand cousing oil prices to go high. This process will continue and oil will never be cheap again.
That sounds a lot like a conspiracy theory to me.
There are some signs that this administration had designs on Iraq before 9-11 but I'm willing to call that war a mistake.
I wasn't totally opposed to the whole thing you know:
I accepted the US at their word that Saddam had WMD. I assumed that they wouldn't be so stupid as to lie about it.
If so, it would seem like a better idea to do something about that now than later.
I was willing to accept the rationale that if there was to be a war, the Iraqi weather made it necessary to go in at that time or postpone by a year.
But the inspections weren't turning anything up, so I was opposed to going in at that time. Either it was too early to say, or Iraq didn't have the weapons.
I felt worried, because the only legitimacy that really matters when you invade a muslim country is what the neighbours will think (and I guess that even means really the average Joe over there, because that's the one who will most likely pick up an AK47 and cross a border).
And I was pretty sure that if stockpiles of WMD were found within about 3 months, it would vindicate the US/UK - even among most muslims.
Lacking such legitimacy would be a guaranteed way of radicalizing a lot of muslims - especially Arab muslims. Because they would see it as a case where THEIR people were attacked for either oil or for Israel or because the "infidel crusaders" want to destroy Islam or something along those lines. It would never matter to much of the muslim world what the real reason was - if the stated reason turned out to be false.
During the first days of the invasion, I heard on BBC World:
they had somebody on the phone in the UK who had contacts with people in Basra, and he said something important: the US/UK would be welcomed, but they should not stay.
I think this person talked about a couple of months. After that the people would revolt.
And that's a Shi'a perspective - they were the oppressed ones.
Anyway, it was a thread about the elections, not specifically about the war,
so might I suggest keeping to the main issue.
There are some signs that this administration had designs on Iraq before 9-11 but I'm willing to call that war a mistake.
I wasn't totally opposed to the whole thing you know:
I accepted the US at their word that Saddam had WMD. I assumed that they wouldn't be so stupid as to lie about it.
If so, it would seem like a better idea to do something about that now than later.
I was willing to accept the rationale that if there was to be a war, the Iraqi weather made it necessary to go in at that time or postpone by a year.
But the inspections weren't turning anything up, so I was opposed to going in at that time. Either it was too early to say, or Iraq didn't have the weapons.
I felt worried, because the only legitimacy that really matters when you invade a muslim country is what the neighbours will think (and I guess that even means really the average Joe over there, because that's the one who will most likely pick up an AK47 and cross a border).
And I was pretty sure that if stockpiles of WMD were found within about 3 months, it would vindicate the US/UK - even among most muslims.
Lacking such legitimacy would be a guaranteed way of radicalizing a lot of muslims - especially Arab muslims. Because they would see it as a case where THEIR people were attacked for either oil or for Israel or because the "infidel crusaders" want to destroy Islam or something along those lines. It would never matter to much of the muslim world what the real reason was - if the stated reason turned out to be false.
During the first days of the invasion, I heard on BBC World:
they had somebody on the phone in the UK who had contacts with people in Basra, and he said something important: the US/UK would be welcomed, but they should not stay.
I think this person talked about a couple of months. After that the people would revolt.
And that's a Shi'a perspective - they were the oppressed ones.
Anyway, it was a thread about the elections, not specifically about the war,
so might I suggest keeping to the main issue.
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Guest
Can you go off topic in an off topic post?Anyway, it was a thread about the elections, not specifically about the war,
so might I suggest keeping to the main issue.
This is an international forum and to be honest we don't really care about what Bush or Kerry wants to do to a small school in Texas, we are interested in what it will mean for our countries. This means that the war is basically all we are interested in and is the most logical way for the convo to go.
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Robomaniac
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The Hellcat
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Unfortunately, there are things that Senator Kerry CANNOT possibly know about current anti-terror and military operations. His extreme criticism would be severely dumbed down should he take office due to learning what exactly is really going on. There are many things that the government cannot release because doing so would put many Americans' and their allies lives in danger. If everyone could get the entire set of info, we would not feel any better about the situation. DEMOCRATS: No matter who is president, there will ALWAYS be problems and always be terrorists. Choose the one you know will keep you safer. REPUBLICANS: Four more years and a safer America!
The election will be VERY close. Unfortunately the majority of American voters have absolutely no idea what is going on, what the issues even are, and where the candidates actually stand on the issues. So in a few days we all get to make our choice: the glossed-over government of a socialist handout-giver, or an already proven safer, better-off America. You decide.
The election will be VERY close. Unfortunately the majority of American voters have absolutely no idea what is going on, what the issues even are, and where the candidates actually stand on the issues. So in a few days we all get to make our choice: the glossed-over government of a socialist handout-giver, or an already proven safer, better-off America. You decide.
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You would vote for a leader of your country by who you consider is going protect you better? That's a pretty messed up view. My country has seen terrorism for a very long time, true nowhere near on the scale of the terrorist attacks on US but there has been a lot of attacks both here and in N. Ireland. I've been in a building when there has been a bomb scare, I've been in London when there have been attacks and I'll tell you what, I'd never let any terrorist determine who I vote for when it comes polling day. Whether you do or not is up to you.
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The Hellcat
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Oh, I'm choosing to vote for the person I'm voting before just because I believe in almost everything they have done and said, and all their ideologies. The other candidate is completely opposite from what I believe in, and I believe would make America into some form of wimpy communist outhouse. The terrorist thing for me is basically me saying how could the supporters of such a terrible candidate who is proven to hate America call themselves just? anyways....LOL... 
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Hellcat: ... Nah forget it, you're lost.
As far as Iraq being an important issue to the rest of the world in this election:
Not really.
What happens in Iraq matters to Iraqis, the neighbours and to countries with large contingents of troops in Iraq.
Whatever international effect there may be, I dooubt it matters whether Kerry or Bush wins this: the damage has already been done.
Kerry is not going to get any non-muslim government to sign on to Bush' adventure now - it's way too screwed up, and their civilians would only become targets.
And of course nobody is going to say "yes" to Bush now. The political opportunists who would have considered it have done so already.
And those are either already out or plan to get out in early 2005. (I count my own government among those opportunists by the way).
The only countries that might sign on are neighbouring countries. No Western government is going to commit troops that have no hope of achieving their mission.
At least a believably sincere fellow Arab intervention will not be opposed by Iraqis on religious/racial grounds, only on nationalist ones.
There is no way Bush can get those on board. After all, OBL is more popular in those countries than Bush.
Getting into Iraq without at least a perceived change in US policies w.r.t. Arab/Muslim nations is just too risky for their governments.
Maybe under a Kerry administration, the US Army might be a little more careful about whose neck they step on, but I doubt it. Those troops are hated too much already. We can only pray that the average Shi'a Iraqi still sees a difference between US soldiers and those of other western countries.
If I were Tyn, I'd be worried about what's going to happen to the Scots currently being redeployed. Somehow I doubt the Sunni insurgents are going to look at the gentler approach the Brits have taken in the south and say "let's give these guys a chance".
Basically it will only affect how much more suffering both the US and Iraq will have to go through. It won't really affect the rest of the world except in economic terms.
Where I think Kerry would do a better job is in not trying to pull the same crap again with Iran or Syria.
As far as Iraq being an important issue to the rest of the world in this election:
Not really.
What happens in Iraq matters to Iraqis, the neighbours and to countries with large contingents of troops in Iraq.
Whatever international effect there may be, I dooubt it matters whether Kerry or Bush wins this: the damage has already been done.
Kerry is not going to get any non-muslim government to sign on to Bush' adventure now - it's way too screwed up, and their civilians would only become targets.
And of course nobody is going to say "yes" to Bush now. The political opportunists who would have considered it have done so already.
And those are either already out or plan to get out in early 2005. (I count my own government among those opportunists by the way).
The only countries that might sign on are neighbouring countries. No Western government is going to commit troops that have no hope of achieving their mission.
At least a believably sincere fellow Arab intervention will not be opposed by Iraqis on religious/racial grounds, only on nationalist ones.
There is no way Bush can get those on board. After all, OBL is more popular in those countries than Bush.
Getting into Iraq without at least a perceived change in US policies w.r.t. Arab/Muslim nations is just too risky for their governments.
Maybe under a Kerry administration, the US Army might be a little more careful about whose neck they step on, but I doubt it. Those troops are hated too much already. We can only pray that the average Shi'a Iraqi still sees a difference between US soldiers and those of other western countries.
If I were Tyn, I'd be worried about what's going to happen to the Scots currently being redeployed. Somehow I doubt the Sunni insurgents are going to look at the gentler approach the Brits have taken in the south and say "let's give these guys a chance".
Basically it will only affect how much more suffering both the US and Iraq will have to go through. It won't really affect the rest of the world except in economic terms.
Where I think Kerry would do a better job is in not trying to pull the same crap again with Iran or Syria.
The Black Watch aren't there to make friends, they are there to hold the fort while the Americans go and do an attack. They will probably be beaten back knowing US tactics of shoot everything in sight and they will end up being there for a while.If I were Tyn, I'd be worried about what's going to happen to the Scots currently being redeployed. Somehow I doubt the Sunni insurgents are going to look at the gentler approach the Brits have taken in the south and say "let's give these guys a chance".
I'm certainly not worried about British troops coming under fire, they do have a contingent from the Royal Marines Commando's with them, if it comes to a firefight I'd back our boys against any army in the world. They are the best in the world and are doing their job, it's a bit of a storm in a teacup. Know why the story was so big here?
Because of the fact that the US wanted our troops under US command. That is something noone in this country wants, we have all heard the stories from troops coming back from Iraq about how stupid US troops are and how much of a liability they are. Believe me when I say that every British death would have been blamed on the US because of their armys reputation here, under UK control I am happy for them to go about their job.
The real issue in US for the rest of the world is how will their foreign policy affect us in the future. Remember that it isn't just a president you elect, it's an entire new team ( not sure what you call it there, we call it the Cabinet ) with entire new policies. Yeah, your leader is the top man but he doesn't do it all himself. If the US go to war, Blair will follow ( assuming he gets elected here next year ) and so we have a vested interest in just who we are following.