Thread: USA government gone rogue (well... not exactly. L.)

Originally Posted by Hanna

diogen_ - I don't dislike the American people, or the country per se. In fact I have a lot of good things to say about both.
Just the foreign policy for the last 60 years, which I loathe.
Mostly I just want Americans to wake up to the fact that what their government is doing is immoral and destructive, as well as not in their long term best interest.

I think it's symbolic that the Korean War of the 1950s didn't come in that 60 year interval. Because the right reasons of what the U.S. managed to achieve in that campaign cannot be questioned even by the most skeptical anti-American people out there. Those uneducated peasants from the north of Korea showed everyone what blind fanaticism of state power can do to people, and that every commie regime will become amazingly nasty over time. If the U.S. hadn't gotten involved back then --- guess what, people of South Korea would now be as well eating grass for dinner! The U.S. and allies having been able to put those commie creatures from hell out of the south was a real bliss for South Korea, for which I guess they're still thankful to the civilized world. And anyone having to say it's about some "traditions" --- just before 1950, it was an ordinary Asian country, maybe not highly developed, but definitely not executing people for not liking living there. And then, the commie military coup turned the northern part into what it is now. So, that outrageous dictatorial tradition is only 60 years old for now, and thankfully to the allies, it didn't spread over the entire peninsula.

Originally Posted by diogen_

Awesome post, UhOhXplode! I may probably need some more time to process, absorb,and digest the cornucopia of patriotic sentiments you described before daring to ask you to provide some more details to fill in the blanks of my extremely narrow outlook on the USA. It’s so much different from the domain of vileness, wickedness, and vice that Hanna presents in the post that goes immediately after yours and in hundreds similar posts she made before that. In fact, I’m experiencing a kind of cognitive dissonance when thinking that you both mean the same country. Could you explain how it is possible that the two respected members have so much different perception of the same thing. The big campaign against terrorism launched by Gerge W. Bush in the wake of 9-11 is not among those only five things that you don’t like about America and you seem to approve the Afghan war. Might it happen that you have a word or two to prevent my mental breakdown and clear away the clouds of doubt and uncertainty that shroud my mental horizon, or as it often happened before you here totally agree with Hanna and just missed a point in your list.

PS.I used to look a bit like Miria Brink but, serendipitously enough, not so long ago I sacrificed all my hair to Lord Siva to facilitate beneficent reincarnation of my poor soul to Kashmir. So, I don’t expect from your sweetheart to be too much jealous and, furthermore, I don’t have any intentions to compromise the future of your possibly still fragile relationships.

Well, I thought it was off-topic but maybe not. I mean, we are discussing the American government so that really means the whole country and not just the political stuff. And hey, if you wanna know anything about me or America just ask. Me, America, and Russia are my favorite topics.
And it's easy to see why me and Hanna have a different perception about America. I live here, she lives in Scandinavia. I think somebody would have to live here to see how cool it really is. Yeah, there's 5 kinda serious issues that need to change but it doesn't mean America's evil. It just means we need a better President to help fix the problems. But tbh - totally honest - if they don't fix those 5 problems then I'm gonna want to get married and have kids somewhere else... like Russia.
And no, I didn't leave anything off my list. I have zero issues about fighting terrorism, the drones, or the NSA. But I will use anything I can find to win a debate. And when I remind people that America did a military coup in Hawaii and tried to kill all the Indians in America in the 18th century and bombed Serbia to grab Kosovo, I'm only proving that Russia annexing Crimea was legit. That's how I win debates!

Oh, and you said something about "Democracy is worse than Communism or whatever else...". I hope you're joking. Communism bites hardcore! I think the 2 best governments right now are in Russia and the US... but I think I like the Russian system more. And I totally do love the geography! It has everything from the Arctic to the tropical shores of Crimea! But if Communism works in China and Cuba then fine. They have the right to have any government they want. Just don't ask me to live there because I need a lot more freedom than that.

And yeah, I do agree with a lot of things that Hanna says. She makes it look really dark and evil sometimes - like a really cool video game - but it's probably just drama to make the topic more interesting. I really don't think I could get very hyped over political debates if they weren't dark and mysterious and exciting. But in the real world, I have a really cool life in America... except chores and deciding what color to dye my hair this weekend. Maybe green. I haven't tried that yet.
Oh, and when I go to Russia I don't wanna see Snowden. Yeah maybe people had the right to know they were being spied on but who really believed that the internet was private? I never did. Okay so he did a service for mankind and all that but he was supposed to be a spy and he leaked. If I was ever a spy I wouldn't leak anything. Even if Draco Malfoy used wrackspurts I still wouldn't talk.

Btw, who is Lord Shiva? He sounds British. And why do you have to reincarnate your soul just to go to Kashmir? I think that's somewhere in India... *very confused* Not a serious issue though because hair grows back really fast. I know, mine has to be trimmed every week. But no worries about Maria Brink. She's too famous to even notice me and I'm not a musician. I'll have to take another girl to the party this weekend.

Edit - Why is it that anybody that disagrees with our foreign policy is anti-American? If anyone wants to see a real anti-American, just read about Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. Now that's what I call a traitor and an anti-American. He got a lot of our soldiers killed.

UhOhXplode, Afghanistan did not attack US.
I mean, their chiefs was not aware, that they are attacking, so was 99.99% of population.
And Osama was rather international person, was not he?
However, it never come to Bush's mind to declare war against Pakistan, right?

You could equally say, Somalia is attacking when couple of pirates boarded another cargo ship.

Wow, the thread name has been edited!.. Ah, okay, I forgot the moderator is American, and America is the most democratic country on Earth.

Originally Posted by maxmixiv

And Osama was rather international person, was not he?

Here is an interesting article about him from 1993:

Originally Posted by lodka

Wow, the thread name has been edited!.. Ah, okay, I forgot the moderator is American, and America is the most democratic country on Earth.

You are right, but then again... not a 100%.

Originally Posted by Basil77

Here is an interesting article about him from 1993:

"Oh what a freedom loving hero! Good thing the US supported the mujahedin (today's taliban) with weapons, so they could fight those evil Russian Communists.... "


This kind of contradiction and TOTAL lack of principle and moral integrity is exactly why I loathe US foreign policy.

Whatever else you can say about the Soviet Union, at least they acted more or less consistently, had some political and philosophical guidelines that they actually stuck to. They were quite open with what their international objectives were, and how they went about supporting those.

Whereas with the US, it is liable to support practically ANYONE or any cause that supports the economic interests of its multinational corporations, and/or it's anti-Russia agenda.

Whether its Muslim fundamentalists that won't even allow women to drive a car, Nazis, murderous right wing dictators in South America or a regime carrying out a technically illegal occupation in Israel, brutal dictatorships in the gulf, like Bahrain - etc etc.

There is a total lack of any kind of any guiding principle.
To make up for that, it lashes out the propaganda, in a way that makes the Soviet Union look like amateurs.
In the USSR, they called propaganda propaganda. Everybody knew that's what they sometimes got, and there was no huge pretense that the press was free and could write exactly what the journalists wanted.

But with the USA, again, there is a huge elaborate pretense about a free press. Yet, if you read several papers or watch several channels, there is minimal variation on the underlying themes; Putin is a dictator and Russia is a dump, although very dangerous; Iran, North Korea and Bashar al Assad are just pure evil, and there are no nuances; Europeans are allright as long as they play along with the USA; "we don't talk about what really goes on in Saudi, Bahrain, Ukraine, etc", "China is a dictatorship, but we can't go to hard on them, because of the debt situation...."
If some population somewhere elects a leader or government that does something contradictory to the US agenda, then the election was a scam and the place is really a dictatorship....

And then repeat ad-nauseum that the US press is free. After all, there are so many papers to choose from...
If a person has hears this "freedom", and "free speech" talk from early childhood, and repeats and oath of loalty every day during childhood, obviously he's affected and takes certain "truths" for granted.

Apparently US children were taught that the the World Trade Centre was attacked because "they hate our freedom".
They probably couldn't care less what America does in its own country. The real reason for the attack was that Bin Laden resented US bases on "holy" soil in Saudi Arabia, and he had raised it several times before. But of course, it never occurred to ANY American press outlet to questioned why it needed bases in Saudi, on the other side of the globe, or discuss the fact that the whole population in Saudi, apart from the leaders resent the bases.
And all this, is assuming Bin Laden was definitely behind it. With a nation as untrustworthy as the USA, you can never be certain that anything it says is true.

If the USA was a person instead of a country, it would be a big bully that lashed out on anyone who dared to stand up against the bullying, or ignore the bully. It would be a person that totally lacked moral principles and whose word could never be trusted.

Originally Posted by UhOhXplode

...I think the 2 best governments right now are in Russia and the US...

the 2 best governments Russia and the US??? Did I read right?

yeah sure, these governments in Finland, Holland, Norway, Botswana, Austria, Switzerland and Denmark are really terrible; poor governance there, no peace, just corruption and infighting, horrible human rights record and always in some conflict with other countries

sometimes it is hard not to laugh

Originally Posted by maxmixiv

UhOhXplode, Afghanistan did not attack US.
I mean, their chiefs was not aware, that they are attacking, so was 99.99% of population.
And Osama was rather international person, was not he?
However, it never come to Bush's mind to declare war against Pakistan, right?

You could equally say, Somalia is attacking when couple of pirates boarded another cargo ship.

All I know about that is what I've been told and what I read. Osama Bin Laden was in Afghanistan when it happened and the Afghan government refused to extradite him. The Taliban was letting Al-Qaeda live in Afghanistan and the US/UK wanted to drive them out so they declared war on Afghanistan. Btw, why would Bush wanna declare war on Pakistan? Did I miss something? *confused*
But they are doing it again. Now the government says that the election in Syria won't be legit because there's war in Syria. But they said the vote in Ukraine was legit and there's a war there too. *seriously confused* I don't get what they used to make those decisions but it can't be brains... Obama, Kerry, McCane, and Nuland are really old so maybe it's Alzheimer's.

Anyway, the Somalians are just attacking ships and not somebody's country...

Originally Posted by eisenherz

the 2 best governments Russia and the US??? Did I read right?

yeah sure, these governments in Finland, Holland, Norway, Botswana, Austria, Switzerland and Denmark are really terrible; poor governance there, no peace, just corruption and infighting, horrible human rights record and always in some conflict with other countries

sometimes it is hard not to laugh

LOL! It's not hard for me to not laugh! I wasn't dissing the other countries and I did say "I think" so that's just me. If there's 2 countries you like more then that's cool.

Also I didn't read about Osama not liking military bases in Saudi Arabia so there's probably still a lot I don't know about that war.

UhOx - you were just a small kid when that happened.
Aghanistan is a totally backwards and very poor country. The majority of the population cannot read, and they live on a dollar a day or something like that. They couldn't find the US on a map, and alone, they couldn't hurt any country because they are too primitive.
The nation of Afghanistan had nothing at all to do with 9-11.

Bin Laden had set up shop there because it offered him asylum after he fell out with his royal family in Saudi.
Truth is, we don't really know too much about him, other than that he hated both the USSR, and then later the USA. USSR because of the invasion of Afghanistan, and the anti-religious stance of the state there, and the USA because it soiled the "holy land" with its bases and is generally corrupt and decadent, from an islamic perspective. There was talk that he had set up "terrorist schools" in Afghanistan. Interesting, because nobody has come across any terrorist trained at a terrorist school. The ones that have caused trouble in the UK and elsewhere in Europe are homegrown. Likewise the Tsarnaev brothers. So what happened with the "graduates" of these schools. I think it's largely hype. People have better things to do with their lives than go to "terrorist schools. "
Probably it was nothing more than a religious school that sometimes ranted on a bit against the West, and with some military training because lots of guys enjoy to run around and pretend its a war.

At the same time, Bin Laden had activities in Sudan, at home in Saudi and in Pakistan.
Yet, Afghanistan was singled out.
Because the US already knew it wanted to take down the taliban and invade the area. It had wanted it from the minute the USSR left.
and that's well documented.

Muslim hospitality is regulated in the Koran. They MUST religiously protect their "moslem brethren".
So they could not stay true to their faith, and hand over Bin Laden. The country is so primitive and poorly organised that they probabably didn't even know for sure that he was there! I vaguely recall this from the papers at the time.

The USA had wanted to invade Afghanistan since long before 9-11 and there is plenty of documentation on it.

If the US didn't keep military bases in Saudi Arabia, 9/11 would never have happened. Can anyone give a legitimate reason why US needs bases there, when it's a friendly nation and located on the other side of the globe from the US? Oh yes, they are there to support even more unnecessary bases elsewhere in the region, and illegal invasions.
The attacks were a tragedy, but frankly it's surprising there haven't been more of them, considering how the US network of bases spreads like a spider web across the globe.

9-11 was EXACTLY the type of excuse they wanted. There was a vague link between Bin Laden and Afghanistan, namely that Bin Laden sometimes stayed there.. But as it turned out later, he also had residence in a nice suburban villa in Pakistan, and that's where he was while the US was wreaking havoc with civilians in Afghanistan!

If Bin Laden wanted more supporters to his cause, the US invasion in Afghanistan was a god-send.
For every person that was killed by the US, a whole family from mothers to brothers and fathers were radicalised.
I understand that this is partly what happened for the USSR which went in to protect some elected Communist government (?). But in doing so, people got killed and the tides turned against them and fuelled radicalism. I was too young at the time, but later I remember people commenting on the hypocrisy that my gov't still hated the USA for Vietnam, yet said nothing about the USSR in Afghanistan. Oh the irony, how tides have turned! Today, I can see that those two conflicts were probably quite different and can't really be compared. For one, Afghanistan bordered the USSR.

The US agenda is proven by the fact that the US is now INSISTING (and won't take no for an answer) that they keep a military presence in Afghanistan. That's what the US wanted all along, and Bin-Laden + 9/11 was just a convienient excuse to kick off the plan. Which is totally absurd since it's on the other side of the planet from the USA and nothing that anyone did there could threaten the US in the slightest.

The only American politician I somewhat respect, is Ron Paul and he knows very well all of what I just said.

@ UhOhxplode

your preference is entirely your choice;
nevertheless, interesting that the one very government (US), whose foreign policy you have been criticising quite voacally here, still rates with you amongst the 2 best governments in the world.

Btw, why would Bush wanna declare war on Pakistan?

I'm not an expert, but it looks like there is no normal border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, so Taliban could function freely on territories of both states. Pakistani government struggled with them and did not allow to control entire country, but Afghani authorities could not, and Taliban took over. So it seems more correct to say "war against Taliban", than "war against Afghanistan".

And no, I didn't leave anything off my list. I have zero issues about fighting terrorism, the drones, or the NSA. But I will use anything I can find to win a debate. And when I remind people that America did a military coup in Hawaii and tried to kill all the Indians in America in the 18th century and bombed Serbia to grab Kosovo, I'm only proving that Russia annexing Crimea was legit. That's how I win debates!

That’s really cool. Now I seem to know where are you coming from, and we can come back to our “axis of evil” issues, if you don’t mind.
You wrote:

Who is this "Axis of Evil"? What country is posing a serious threat to the security of any other country today? Please name the country and explain how it's imminent that they will invade and take out another country. "Axis of Evil" is a term used to describe a country that's a real and serious threat to another country...

The nukes in Iran are being resolved and that only leaves North Korea. But it's getting friendly with Russia now so they probably aren't a serious threat.

I tend to agree with your to some extent about Iran but not about North Korea. Osama bin Laden used to be friendly with the USA during the war with the Soviet Uninon and than turned his back to the former ally. Hence, friendliness is just a temporary characteristic of a person rather than something permanent and can evaporate anytime.

We know also that North Korea possesses some rudimentary nukes and it is actively trying to develop means of its delivery. Thus,

On April 5, 2009, North Korea launched the Unha-2 space booster (allegedly based on the long-range Taepodong-2). Although the launch was more successful than the 2006 test, the third stage still failed to separate properly. The UN Security Council condemned the launch as a violation of previous Security Council resolutions.[75]

This means North Korea may be able to develop/deploy mobile ICBMs, which can survive a U.S. first strike, within 7–10 years.[76]

North Korea and weapons of mass destruction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hence, I’m asking myself, why do they need these nukes and means of its delivery in the first place. They’re certainly doomed to be defeated in any open armed conflict with the USA right of the bat, with all their stockpile being destroyed within first few hours of the war. The only reason that comes to my mind is that they want to be ready to perpetrate a terrorist attack in the same way as it was done by mad Arabs on 9-11, i.e. without any particular reason just because of their perverted nature, for example, in order to annihilate the main “class enemy” and die as “heroes” afterwards. So, I’m wondering maybe it’s better for the USA to press even harder on these commies and destroy their capacity to harm the USA long before they will be able to commit any heinous act of crime. Thoughts.

Originally Posted by Hanna

UhOx - you were just a small kid when that happened.
Aghanistan is a totally backwards and very poor country. The majority of the population cannot read, and they live on a dollar a day or something like that. They couldn't find the US on a map, and alone, they couldn't hurt any country because they are too primitive.
The nation of Afghanistan had nothing at all to do with 9-11.
Bin Laden had set up shop there because it offered him asylum after he fell out with his royal family in Saudi.
Truth is, we don't really know too much about him, other than that he hated both the USSR, and then later the USA. USSR because of the invasion of Afghanistan, and the anti-religious stance of the state there, and the USA because it soiled the "holy land" with its bases and is generally corrupt and decadent, from an islamic perspective. There was talk that he had set up "terrorist schools" in Afghanistan. Interesting, because nobody has come across any terrorist trained at a terrorist school. The ones that have caused trouble in the UK and elsewhere in Europe are homegrown. Likewise the Tsarnaev brothers. So what happened with the "graduates" of these schools. I think it's largely hype. People have better things to do with their lives than go to "terrorist schools. "
Probably it was nothing more than a religious school that sometimes ranted on a bit against the West, and with some military training because lots of guys enjoy to run around and pretend its a war.
At the same time, Bin Laden had activities in Sudan, at home in Saudi and in Pakistan.
Yet, Afghanistan was singled out.
Because the US already knew it wanted to take down the taliban and invade the area. It had wanted it from the minute the USSR left.
and that's well documented.
Muslim hospitality is regulated in the Koran. They MUST religiously protect their "moslem brethren".
So they could not stay true to their faith, and hand over Bin Laden. The country is so primitive and poorly organised that they probabably didn't even know for sure that he was there! I vaguely recall this from the papers at the time.
The USA had wanted to invade Afghanistan since long before 9-11 and there is plenty of documentation on it.
If the US didn't keep military bases in Saudi Arabia, 9/11 would never have happened. Can anyone give a legitimate reason why US needs bases there, when it's a friendly nation and located on the other side of the globe from the US? Oh yes, they are there to support even more unnecessary bases elsewhere in the region, and illegal invasions.
The attacks were a tragedy, but frankly it's surprising there haven't been more of them, considering how the US network of bases spreads like a spider web across the globe.
9-11 was EXACTLY the type of excuse they wanted. There was a vague link between Bin Laden and Afghanistan, namely that Bin Laden sometimes stayed there.. But as it turned out later, he also had residence in a nice suburban villa in Pakistan, and that's where he was while the US was wreaking havoc with civilians in Afghanistan!
If Bin Laden wanted more supporters to his cause, the US invasion in Afghanistan was a god-send.
For every person that was killed by the US, a whole family from mothers to brothers and fathers were radicalised.
I understand that this is partly what happened for the USSR which went in to protect some elected Communist government (?). But in doing so, people got killed and the tides turned against them and fuelled radicalism. I was too young at the time, but later I remember people commenting on the hypocrisy that my gov't still hated the USA for Vietnam, yet said nothing about the USSR in Afghanistan. Oh the irony, how tides have turned! Today, I can see that those two conflicts were probably quite different and can't really be compared. For one, Afghanistan bordered the USSR.

The US agenda is proven by the fact that the US is now INSISTING (and won't take no for an answer) that they keep a military presence in Afghanistan. That's what the US wanted all along, and Bin-Laden + 9/11 was just a convienient excuse to kick off the plan. Which is totally absurd since it's on the other side of the planet from the USA and nothing that anyone did there could threaten the US in the slightest.

The only American politician I somewhat respect, is Ron Paul and he knows very well all of what I just said.

His royal family? I thought Osama Bin Laden was an Afghan but if Afghanistan was really primitive then yeah, that doesn't add up. Anyway, that's a lot I didn't know about all that. So he was really from Saudi Arabia but he was hiding from his family in Afghanistan? Did his family try to arrest him after he attacked America? That's a really confusing war. I need to learn a lot more about it.

Originally Posted by eisenherz

@ UhOhxplode
your preference is entirely your choice;
nevertheless, interesting that the one very government (US), whose foreign policy you have been criticising quite voacally here, still rates with you amongst the 2 best governments in the world.

Would you stop liking your country just because the foreign policy was messed up? That would be like not liking your desktop PC just because it didn't have a really sick case. Just buy a cool case for it... problem solved! Yeah the foreign policy thing is part of my country but only one part. Most of my country isn't all about foreign policy. It's about a ton of other stuff and mostly cool stuff.

Originally Posted by maxmixiv

I'm not an expert, but it looks like there is no normal border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, so Taliban could function freely on territories of both states. Pakistani government struggled with them and did not allow to control entire country, but Afghani authorities could not, and Taliban took over. So it seems more correct to say "war against Taliban", than "war against Afghanistan".

Thanks for that! I don't know very much about the Taliban and I definitely didn't know that they considered Afghanistan and Pakistan to be just one country.

Originally Posted by diogen_

That’s really cool. Now I seem to know where are you coming from, and we can come back to our “axis of evil” issues, if you don’t mind.
You wrote:
I tend to agree with your to some extent about Iran but not about North Korea. Osama bin Laden used to be friendly with the USA during the war with the Soviet Uninon and than turned his back to the former ally. Hence, friendliness is just a temporary characteristic of a person rather than something permanent and can evaporate anytime.
We know also that North Korea possesses some rudimentary nukes and it is actively trying to develop means of its delivery. Thus,
North Korea and weapons of mass destruction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hence, I’m asking myself, why do they need these nukes and means of its delivery in the first place. They’re certainly doomed to be defeated in any open armed conflict with the USA right of the bat, with all their stockpile being destroyed within first few hours of the war. The only reason that comes to my mind is that they want to be ready to perpetrate a terrorist attack in the same way as it was done by mad Arabs on 9-11, i.e. without any particular reason just because of their perverted nature, for example, in order to annihilate the main “class enemy” and die as “heroes” afterwards. So, I’m wondering maybe it’s better for the USA to press even harder on these commies and destroy their capacity to harm the USA long before they will be able to commit any heinous act of crime. Thoughts.

I have lots of thoughts about that. I'm hoping Russia can derail North Korea's nuclear program but if that can't happen then I still say this:
I support the war on terror, drone strikes, and the NSA... and that war on terror includes Kim Jong-Un and all the other terrorists in the North Korean government. North Koreans should listen to K-Pop, NOT Kim Jong-Un! Nobody should ever listen to Kim Jong Nutjobs!

Actually, I mis-typed. Bin Laden was not royal (though so many people in Saudi Arabia are, so it wouldn't have been far fetched). The family is moguls in the construction industry. They have a large multinational business called BinLadin Group that's active across the Middle East and Africa.

1. Saudi Binladin Group Construction company
2. The Saudi Binladin Group is a multinational construction conglomerate and is headquartered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Wikipedia - tracked
3. Founder: Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden
4. Founded: 1950
5. Headquarters: Jeddah, Makkah Region, Saudi Arabia

The family is religious too, I believe everybody in Saudi is, to some degree. But for Osama it got extreme, and he also mixed it up with politics.
He had access to very large funds and didn't need to work, so he started spending money on setting up radical moslem groups.

I don't believe there is ONE actual "Al Qaeda" group, that's just nice for propaganda, and simplified. It's a bunch of smaller group, some self supporting, some funded from Saudi -- people like Osama bin Laden (and he was not really unique, just the one who got on the radar).

So he spread the word that he had cash and wanted to see some jihadist struggle. I don't known precisely what people like this believe in, but I think it's; "Kick out the infidels (USA) from the holy land (Saudi Arabia)", "Death to lsгael".

Because he had some MBA-like degree, he could organise to a higher level, and manage the finances better for the groups that sponsored than what normally happened. So he became quite successful. While the USA had liked him pre '92 when he was anti-Soviet, they now realised that he was not such a freedom fighter after all. So he ended up on some international wanted list, managed by the US. But in practice, I don't think that means anything, as long as you don't attempt to go to Europe or North America.
He was travelling between the Sudan, the Emirates, Saudi and Afghanistan/Pakistan. After he was on the FBI most wanted list, the family cut him off, to preserve the good name of the business. So he had less money, but still some.

Apparently he was actually a really nice person, socially. People liked him. Soft-spoken and a good listener. Caring and charitable. Nobody had anything bad to say about his personality. He had several wives, one was interviewed who really loved him. A few others, he had more or less discarded, provided for the mother and kids financially, but nothing more. Some of those kids spoke up as well, and they just didn't know him very well, but they didn't dislike him.

However - he had crossed the line with his religion and ideology. He believed that the ends justified the means. Including killing large numbers of people.

I guess he believed that those civilians who got killed in 9-11 had made their choice, by choosing to work at the very symbol of American imperialist power and decadence, or at Pentagon

And this is assuming that he WAS behind the attacks! I think so, to 90%, but I wouldn't fall off the chair if it turned out it was some black ops inside job in the USA. It was darn convenient, allowing the USA to go ahead with the exact operations it had hampered on for the preceding decade, but had been unable to justify. After 9-11, they had carte blanche in the eyes of the US public.

Sure, what he did is condemnable and wrong. But look at the Iraq wars - the death toll is over half a million civilians. Likewise Afghanistan. The US president who authorised these wars and the military leaders have blood on their hands.

I would have admired and sympathised with the USA if it had handled the response to the attacks differently. Mourn the dead. Put the suspects on an international wanted list and start looking for them. Consider what brings about such hatred. Is it necessary to keep troops on somebody else's holy land? Ponder what the h-ll the US doing in the Middle East anyway? Nothing that happens there is a security threat to the US. No one asked for them to get involved. It's pure imperalist aggressiveness, nothing else and in 9/11 it got to pay a small fraction of a price of the suffering it imposed on others across the globe for the last 70 years.

Bowe Bergdahl could have notified his comrades so they didn't waste lives looking for him, but I sympathise with what he did (appears he got fed up and walked off...) and I wouldn't be surprised if he had a personality transformation while with the taliban. A British woman who was kidnapped by them for a while ended up becoming a moslem after she was released (Yvonne Ridley, interesting story).

Not saying that they are any angels, I personally don't sympathise with them and I certainly would run a mile to avoid them. But the story is NOT black and white.

Originally Posted by UhOhXplode

I have lots of thoughts about that. I'm hoping Russia can derail North Korea's nuclear program but if that can't happen then I still say this:
I support the war on terror, drone strikes, and the NSA... and that war on terror includes Kim Jong-Un and all the other terrorists in the North Korean government. North Koreans should listen to K-Pop, NOT Kim Jong-Un! Nobody should ever listen to Kim Jong Nutjobs!

I don't think you'd say that, if you actually knew about the history of North Korea. And K-pop "sucks".
I challenge you to dig out the other side of the story on that country. You'll be very surprised.

North Koreans are very sweet and gentle, idealistic and proud. And they are smart. Educated people there follow world events. After the Korean war, not a building was left standing in the major cities in North Korea. The US used every (now illegal) weapon under the sun against them. A whole generation grew up as orphans and the 50+ generation when I was there in 1990, ca, was full of cripples. Never seen anything like it.

For me, visiting North Korea was a turning point. I didn't want to go there, nobody cared about it at the time. It was just another socialist country, and they were very low on the cool destinations lists at the time. But my dad couldn't leave my brother and me alone in his flat in a certain other East Asian country where he was working. We were on summer hols from school and our mum was very sick. So we went along and spent almost 3 weeks there.

At the time, it was unlike any other place. I ended up really respecting the people there and what they were trying to achieve. They were taking after the USSR a lot, but they took their ideology seriously, real believers.

Obviously their human rights records leaves a lot to be desired and I think it's right to put strong pressure on them internationally to remedy that. But that is just a fraction of what the country is about. They are a country with a vision. Idealists beyond anything you ever saw.
There is no doubt it's demonized more than any other country. And the picture painted in media about NK is simply not true.

I have not visited Saudi Arabia or sub-Saharan Africa. Only seen it on TV and read about it.
But if the choice was between living in Saudi, sub-Saharan Africa or North Korea, I'd easily pick North Korea for several reasons. Also, North Korea is opening up and the living standards are going up considerably.
I know I will be attacked now, and trolled for presenting an alternative view on this, and perhaps for being heartless or stupid("North Korea has prison camps! You were fooled by propaganda!") But the US has the largest part of its population in prison internationally, and Russia still has labour camps to this day. Personally I prefer the Northern European prison system, but it's not an option for all countries.
So let him whose country is free of sin throw the first stone, huh?

Originally Posted by Hanna

I don't think you'd say that, if you actually knew about the history of North Korea. And K-pop "sucks".
I challenge you to dig out the other side of the story on that country. You'll be very surprised.

North Koreans are very sweet and gentle, idealistic and proud. And they are smart. Educated people there follow world events. After the Korean war, not a building was left standing in the major cities in North Korea. The US used every (now illegal) weapon under the sun against them. A whole generation grew up as orphans and the 50+ generation when I was there in 1990, ca, was full of cripples. Never seen anything like it.

For me, visiting North Korea was a turning point. I didn't want to go there, nobody cared about it at the time. It was just another socialist country, and they were very low on the cool destinations lists at the time. But my dad couldn't leave my brother and me alone in his flat in a certain other East Asian country where he was working. We were on summer hols from school and our mum was very sick. So we went along and spent almost 3 weeks there.

At the time, it was unlike any other place. I ended up really respecting the people there and what they were trying to achieve. They were taking after the USSR a lot, but they took their ideology seriously, real believers.

Obviously their human rights records leaves a lot to be desired and I think it's right to put strong pressure on them internationally to remedy that. But that is just a fraction of what the country is about. They are a country with a vision. Idealists beyond anything you ever saw.
There is no doubt it's demonized more than any other country. And the picture painted in media about NK is simply not true.

I have not visited Saudi Arabia or sub-Saharan Africa. Only seen it on TV and read about it.
But if the choice was between living in Saudi, sub-Saharan Africa or North Korea, I'd easily pick North Korea for several reasons. Also, North Korea is opening up and the living standards are going up considerably.
I know I will be attacked now, and trolled for presenting an alternative view on this, and perhaps for being heartless or stupid("North Korea has prison camps! You were fooled by propaganda!") But the US has the largest part of its population in prison internationally, and Russia still has labour camps to this day. Personally I prefer the Northern European prison system, but it's not an option for all countries.
So let him whose country is free of sin throw the first stone, huh?

Saying that K-Pop "sucks" is like saying that cauliflower tastes like dog food. They're both serious understatements and either one could easily be considered more inhumane than waterboarding. But Koreans like it... They probably like Justin Bieber too. =/
All I know about North Korea is some stuff I read in the media so mostly I was just trying to kill the topic. But it does border with Russia and the closer ties could be helpful for both countries - especially if North Korea joins the Eurasian Union. When I have some free time I will check out the history about that. But I really don't think I'll get anything better than "North Korea sucks" from most of the media so if you have any objective links to North Korean history, please lmk.

Originally Posted by Hanna

North Koreans are very sweet and gentle, idealistic and proud. And they are smart. Educated people there follow world events. After the Korean war, not a building was left standing in the major cities in North Korea. The US used every (now illegal) weapon under the sun against them. A whole generation grew up as orphans and the 50+ generation when I was there in 1990, ca, was full of cripples. Never seen anything like it.

For me, visiting North Korea was a turning point. I didn't want to go there, nobody cared about it at the time. It was just another socialist country, and they were very low on the cool destinations lists at the time. But my dad couldn't leave my brother and me alone in his flat in a certain other East Asian country where he was working. We were on summer hols from school and our mum was very sick. So we went along and spent almost 3 weeks there.

At the time, it was unlike any other place. I ended up really respecting the people there and what they were trying to achieve. They were taking after the USSR a lot, but they took their ideology seriously, real believers.

Obviously their human rights records leaves a lot to be desired and I think it's right to put strong pressure on them internationally to remedy that. But that is just a fraction of what the country is about. They are a country with a vision. Idealists beyond anything you ever saw.
There is no doubt it's demonized more than any other country. And the picture painted in media about NK is simply not true.

I have not visited Saudi Arabia or sub-Saharan Africa. Only seen it on TV and read about it.
But if the choice was between living in Saudi, sub-Saharan Africa or North Korea, I'd easily pick North Korea for several reasons. Also, North Korea is opening up and the living standards are going up considerably.
I know I will be attacked now, and trolled for presenting an alternative view on this, and perhaps for being heartless or stupid("North Korea has prison camps! You were fooled by propaganda!") But the US has the largest part of its population in prison internationally, and Russia still has labour camps to this day. Personally I prefer the Northern European prison system, but it's not an option for all countries.
So let him whose country is free of sin throw the first stone, huh?

NK is just a big nazi concentration camp. They still have that ideology that goes from Mao's cultural revolution in china, but north-koreans had added to it their juche-songun ideas. There was nothing like that in the USSR.

What about russian labor camps, ppl usually prefer to go there then to stay in prison cells. And I don't think the US system of private prisons is ever better then any labor camps.

North europain prison system is good (but the problem is that in europe is amazing level of mass media censorship so i'm afraid we don't know much about it). But the best prisons are in japan and singapore i think.


Северная Корея. Часть I
Северная Корея. Часть II
Северная Корея. Часть III
Северная Корея. Часть IV
http://juche-songun.livejournal.com/

I can't be bothered to quarrel about North Korea with anyone. Like I said, I've been following it on and off since I visited there, 1990, so I have a better idea than most what I am talking about. Obviously I am well aware of the "concentration camp" accusations and I am not saying there isn't some truth to it. But that's by no means the full picture.

Alex, I think you know (or maybe you don't know?) what the USA was spewing out about the Soviet Union back in those days, and that you also know from personal experience (or that of your parents) that a lot of it was pure nonsense and exaggeration. It may have had many faults but it was not 24/7 hell, as the US would have people believe, was it? And some aspects to it were good. Why should this be different? If you choose to believe they hype you are meant to, by all means! I won't stop you. I thought most people in Russia were smarter than that though. There is no black and white on things like this, and a Yeltsin in North Korea would make things even worse than today.

I am sure you in Russia (ex USSR) for the most part wanted to change/improve of your own initiative, not have somebody else invade or dictate what you should do, because that's what the US or Western Europe thinks...

North Korea deserves the same right, doesn't it? Including the right to keep their system if they don't care enough to bring it down, or its not incompetent enough to fail on its own.

Just look at Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Iraq etc. That's what happens when foreign powers meddle in countries they don't understand, and don't have to live in themselves.
It does NOT get better for the population. The only effective and fair change is what a country's own population brings about. And they do, if it's bad enough. We are not God and we are not responsible for what happens in North Korea. The North Korean people are.

UhoX asked for links on this subject
Here are three American run blogs. They are Anti-North Korea, but they follow events in depth and the information is not deliberately hyped up.

North Korea Tech
North Korean Economy Watch
North Korea Leadership Watch | Research and Analysis on the DPRK Leadership

Allegedly there are some "higher quality" Russian blogs by some people who once lived permanently in North Korea. I haven't looked for those and am not interested enough. However those are allegedly the most "objective" blogs on North Korea, since they have no clear agenda, and the people who run them speak Korean and know the culture there. If anyone know what they are please share the links. I wouldn't mind taking a look.

Originally Posted by Hanna

I can't be bothered to quarrel about North Korea with anyone. Like I said, I've been following it on and off since I visited there, 1990, so I have a better idea than most what I am talking about. Obviously I am well aware of the "concentration camp" accusations and I am not saying there isn't some truth to it. But that's by no means the full picture.

There is always one thing that makes country a "concentration camp" regardless of ideology of the regime it's freedom of travel and relocation. Not only north koreans are being refused simple right to travel and move they are being divided geografically according to social classes they belong to. All that makes the social system to look feudal.

Originally Posted by Hanna

Alex, I think you know (or maybe you don't know?) what the USA was spewing out about the Soviet Union back in those days, and that you also know from personal experience (or that of your parents) that a lot of it was pure nonsense and exaggeration. It may have had many faults but it was not 24/7 hell, as the US would have people believe, was it? And some aspects to it were good. Why should this be different? If you choose to believe they hype you are meant to, by all means! I won't stop you. I thought most people in Russia were smarter than that though. There is no black and white on things like this, and a Yeltsin in North Korea would make things even worse than today.

I know how the USSR was depicted in the west and especially in the US (i lived in the US quite a long time) and i lived in the USSR ro 20 years of my life. But that's different story. There's nothing like anti-soviet US propaganda here in Russia about north Korea.
There are a lot of north koreans here who came to work both legally and refugees. I had some chances to get information straight from the tin.

Originally Posted by Hanna

I am sure you in Russia (ex USSR) for the most part wanted to change/improve of your own initiative, not have somebody else invade or dictate what you should do, because that's what the US or Western Europe thinks...

North Korea deserves the same right, doesn't it? Including the right to keep their system if they don't care enough to bring it down, or its not incompetent enough to fail on its own.

I don't deny that NK have all its rights. I just state how things are.

Originally Posted by Hanna

Just look at Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Iraq etc. That's what happens when foreign powers meddle in countries they don't understand, and don't have to live in themselves.
It does NOT get better for the population. The only effective and fair change is what a country's own population brings about. And they do, if it's bad enough. We are not God and we are not responsible for what happens in North Korea. The North Korean people are.

That's a plain eutopia.
If you are small and not in alliance with someone big then someom=ne else big will come to get his profit out of your weekness.