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bah. I can't make the counter display properly.
I'm in two minds about this war. I don't like that Australia has troops over there. But I can't help feeling that Saddam and his murderous, bloody regeim has to go, and a diplomatic solution won't do it.
NATO did this same thing to Serbia when the Kosovars were being murdered, but I don't remember such an outcry against "America" at the time. Actually, what I do remember is "The World" asking why isn't NATO and The Americans doing something to protect the civillians? How can they let this happen?
Every stray bomb has the world pointing their fingers at The Americans while they accuse them of murdering civillians. In the meantime 16 SCUD missiles have been launched at Kuwait.
Not at targets in Kuwait, mind you, just AT Kuwait to fall wherever they happen to fall amonst the people. A combination of luck and ineptitude has seen all the scuds miss the target. One landed in the harbour an hour ago and caused some damage to shop fronts. I haven't heard anyone outside the military say this is a deplorable action. So I will. Launching missiles so that they fall randomly amonst a civillian population is an act of terrorism designed to have the same effect as letter bombs, car bombs, anthrax letters, V1 and V2 bombs, and all the other tings launched to kill an unarmed civillian population. It is wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong no matter how justified the launcher feels.
Well gee, it mustn't be wrong because The Americans are the agressors.
I don't think anyone in their right mind wants war. I'm anti war. I'm also anti-Saddam. I am NOT anti-US (although I do shake my head at the United Statian conservatives and wonder what they are thinking. It is possible to be anti-war and pro-US.) I am a patriot. I love my country and I am proud of our troops, but I detest this fucking Government.
The pro-war propagander says every Iraqi wants a regeim change. Anti-war propagander says no Iraqi wants a change. The truth is somewhere in the middle, along with the little fact that during war civillians get it in the neck every time.
but I'm rambling.
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I'm in two minds about this war. I don't like that Australia has troops over there. But I can't help feeling that Saddam and his murderous, bloody regeim has to go, and a diplomatic solution won't do it.
NATO did this same thing to Serbia when the Kosovars were being murdered, but I don't remember such an outcry against "America" at the time. Actually, what I do remember is "The World" asking why isn't NATO and The Americans doing something to protect the civillians? How can they let this happen?
Every stray bomb has the world pointing their fingers at The Americans while they accuse them of murdering civillians. In the meantime 16 SCUD missiles have been launched at Kuwait.
Not at targets in Kuwait, mind you, just AT Kuwait to fall wherever they happen to fall amonst the people. A combination of luck and ineptitude has seen all the scuds miss the target. One landed in the harbour an hour ago and caused some damage to shop fronts. I haven't heard anyone outside the military say this is a deplorable action. So I will. Launching missiles so that they fall randomly amonst a civillian population is an act of terrorism designed to have the same effect as letter bombs, car bombs, anthrax letters, V1 and V2 bombs, and all the other tings launched to kill an unarmed civillian population. It is wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong no matter how justified the launcher feels.
Well gee, it mustn't be wrong because The Americans are the agressors.
I don't think anyone in their right mind wants war. I'm anti war. I'm also anti-Saddam. I am NOT anti-US (although I do shake my head at the United Statian conservatives and wonder what they are thinking. It is possible to be anti-war and pro-US.) I am a patriot. I love my country and I am proud of our troops, but I detest this fucking Government.
The pro-war propagander says every Iraqi wants a regeim change. Anti-war propagander says no Iraqi wants a change. The truth is somewhere in the middle, along with the little fact that during war civillians get it in the neck every time.
but I'm rambling.
.
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You know that I am, in many respects, a conservative. In a non-religious pro-choice no-private-interference-in-lives sort of way. ];-)
Few stray bombs have actually happened--and of course, the ones that have are off course largely thanks to the Russians and the jamming gear that they are in Iraq helping with now.
During the NATO situation, we had a Democrat for president. It's different--the media in the United States is very pro-Democrat. What you don't see over there, for example, are the pro-US rallies that take place in this country. The media generally adopts an "it's not newsworthy" attitude.
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I notice in news reports that "all" peace protests around the world are really violent, and are reported as such in a "how ironic and hypoctritcal" manner. Peaceful People aren't news. Aside: have you noticed how little NEWS there is now? It's all just stories.
It bothers me greatly that Russian technology is being still being sold to the Iraqi Mob, even as the fighting intensifies. And I won't be surprised if there is a Basra Road-style incident on a non-coalition convoy near the Syrian boarder.
You know, I wonder about these stray bombs. The first one left a fucking huge crater in the reo-concrete, which says to me that it exploded when it penetrated the ground and wasn't a cruise missile. The second one caused even more damage to the shops and people, yet left a pissy little crater about the size we used to make in the dirt of the farm by setting off a bucket of fuel-oil/fertilizer explosive. That says to me that it wasn't so much a stray bomb as a carefully placed bomb that was sitting on the ground when it went off.
Or maybe I'm just thinking the worst of the mob in Bahgdad. Surely they wouldn't bomb their own markets after getting the idea from a genuine accident. (sarcasm alert!)
It's always the markets, isn't it?. You never hear "A stray bomb landed in the river and failed in injure anyone, which was lucky." It's always Crowded Markets no matter what time of day it happens.
If only we had some sort of magic wand to stop it.
den
(liberal in a "the Police are neccessary" way.)
Re:
The Red Cross has very different figures from what the Iraq regime puts out. But I have no doubt that the civlians that the Fedayeen and RG are slaughtering are being hauled in to be headcounted as "American-caused casualties".
Only one problem: Those bullets and shapnel pieces are of Russian manufacture.
===|==============/ Level Head
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You know, I was just saying to myself this morning that between the decade-long coverage of Clinton's blow job and the way the networks are now happily lining up to suck off Bush themselves, I don't want to hear one word about the "liberal news media" ever again.
Cerulean, moderate center in an extreme kind of way
Re:
Offhand, what would you guess for liberal versus conservative radio stations? Eight to two? Nine to one?
The stations that carry National Public Radio are generally the hosting centers for anti-war protests. I had never before heard a radio station put out a widespread call for the assasination of a president before.
But I will grant that these people are a minority.
===|==============/ Level Head
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are prejudiced toward political parties:
Look at it this way:
The news organizations presented the Clinton story this way:
"Did Clinton have sex?"
That never should have been the issue. The issue *should*
have been:
"Did Clinton lie under oath in a court of law while he was
up on sexual harassment charges."
It's not the sex part that's important, it's the Lying under
Oath part.
As for the prejudices we now see, contrast the following
typical interviews I see on TV:
BBC newsreader interviewing Arab nation diplomat asking
leading questions like "With all your people protesting
the American Invasion of Iraq, how can you justify supporting
American policy?"
(I gather that the BBC's War correspondants are complaining
that the BBC is distorting reports about the war in favor of
Iraq.)
Typical FoxNews interviewer asking Anti-War Protestor,
"Under what circumstances will you change your mind and
support the war? What if they find chemical weapons?
What if they find biological weapons? What if they find
torture-rape political prisons? What about the death
squads shooting their own soldiers?"
To be frank, I'm getting pretty disgusted with the news
coverage and I find myself tuneing out or leaving the
room when it comes on. I know that's not the proper
reaction I should be having, but I have a hard time
surpressing the emotional gut reaction that says, "Get me
outta here!"
Re:
A news broadcast I heard while driving this morning troubled me. A lot.
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Laughs hysterically. That the right-wing can still honestly or self-deceptively spew that sort of shit amuses the hell out of me. The media in the US is owned and dominated by conservatives, and not moderate conservatives either. From Clear Channel pimping the war to Fox News/Murdoch practically masturbating over it, and still they shrill 'it's liberal media.' Nearly every bit of coverage concentrates on a few violent outriders and minimizes numbers of anti-war rallies, and still they sob 'it's liberal media'.
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See http://www.livejournal.com/users/klwalton/163029.html
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I am not anti all war. I believe that Saddam is wrong and needs to be removed. So does Mugabe. And the North Korea has problems too.
Wrong regimes do not give other people the right to blow them away. It is wrong to go against the UN. What Bush has done is to negate the UN entirely, which gives our world no international oomph. The US representative walked out of the Un Security Council on Thursday. The US seems to think it can just ingore that opinions of the rest of the world.
What does this make them?
Do they need to be removed?
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The reason why no other governments opposed the actions (unlike this time around) is because Serbia is in Europe's back yard and none of the Europeans wanted to have a nasty regime that close to them, and because nobody had any business ties with Serbia.
I am a patriot. I love my country and I am proud of our troops, but I detest this fucking Government.
That pretty much sums it up for me, too.
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I just wanted to say: I'm an anti-war Yank, but Saddam is a dictator that needs removing. He should be arrested and put on trial for war crimes. I don't understand why we need to decimate Baghdad to do that. There's quite a few equally-evil dictators that could use removing, to say nothing of North Korea's threat displays. The reasons for this war, at this time have never been made clear to me by Dubya or any member of his cabinet.
The world's pissed at the US because it looks like Imperialism all over again . . . and the only system we have to stop a territory-hungry President is the House and Senate, who are far too busy with important tasks (like passing a National Day of Prayer) to listen to the screams of the protesters, both here in Seppoland and around the world . . .
Thinking about it makes me feel tired and useless. I have no faith in the leaders of my own country.