Prisoners with wires attached to their genitals

[Cartalas]

But Adex its ok for them to cheer the burning of Americans in the street. while I think the Torture of the Iraq soldiers is sad and should be punished. Im having a hard time finding sympathy for them.

The Americans or the Iraqis?

The Iraqis

[vn_Tanc]

I really wish the stupid ass Brits would have not done such a pathetic job of drawing maplines and left the world so fucked

wtfomg.
what's more likely to be causing the problems now - the actions of Britain close to 100 years ago or cold-war manipulation of national politics in client states across the globe?
Iraq is a mess because the US put Saddam in power to prevent a (democratically elected) socialist government taking control.
Afghanistan is a mess because everyone completely forgets that the place is unconquerable and unpacifiable. Ask every "great power" for the last 200 years. They all tried and they all got buttfucked.
Israel, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan - all cold war victims.
N Korea - cold war.
Indonesia, the Phillipines, SE Asia in general - well blame the french

[vn_Tanc]

The point is it shouldn't be on fucking TV in the first place. The media shouldn't be allowed to see any of this

Yeah yeah we've all ready heard the opinion from the Vote Stalin party thx.

[Cartalas]

But Adex its ok for them to cheer the burning of Americans in the street. while I think the Torture of the Iraq soldiers is sad and should be punished. Im having a hard time finding sympathy for them.

The Americans or the Iraqis?

NM Double Post

[Truant]

Of course we are still better than the major colonizing powers. No genocide lately...

How do you qualify lately? Because if you're talking less than 200 years, that's probably a borderline, or flat wrong statement.

[Forthe]

If you take a population of over 245 million people, you can find any opinion you want.

But Adex its ok for them to cheer the burning of Americans in the street. while I think the Torture of the Iraq soldiers is sad and should be punished. Im having a hard time finding sympathy for them.

1) Adex (rightfully) protests portraying a single person's\small group's views as the larger population's view.
2) Cart supports Adex by portraying a single person's\small group's views as the larger population's view.

[Chidoro]

If you take a population of over 245 million people, you can find any opinion you want.

Agreed, even if all logic dictates otherwise.

The whole Gods and Clods environment couldn't exist w/out the suitable number of clods.

[Lynxe]

What's sad that it takes shit like this has to happen before some of you realise why people around the world hate Americans?

I hate travelling to destinations where a lot of US citizens go. I swear you folks leave all the nice people home and just let the obnoxious folks travel because I have US friends (some on VV) that are awesome so I know you are not all jerks

Last year my folks went to the Dominican to a resort with a swim up bar. Two US men were drinking at the bar, and instead of tipping the bar tender, they'd throw the $1 tip into the water and get the completely humiliated bartender to jump over the bar, into the water after it (clothes and all). Before you mock the bartender, take a look at the people in the Dominican Republic and see how poor they are, $1 is a lot of money to them. The next day, to stop the "joke", the manager served the bar instead and refused to leap for the tip. The American's were outraged and actually complained to the resort until they put their "jumper" back. When they went right back to humiliating him for kicks, dad complained to the resort which finally put a stop to it.

It isn't hard to see why other countries don't like the US. The sad part is that the US has a lot of nice people in it, but the assholes tend to stick out.

[Cartalas]

What's sad that it takes shit like this has to happen before some of you realise why people around the world hate Americans?

I hate travelling to destinations where a lot of US citizens go. I swear you folks leave all the nice people home and just let the obnoxious folks travel because I have US friends (some on VV) that are awesome so I know you are not all jerks

Last year my folks went to the Dominican to a resort with a swim up bar. Two US men were drinking at the bar, and instead of tipping the bar tender, they'd throw the $1 tip into the water and get the completely humiliated bartender to jump over the bar, into the water after it (clothes and all). Before you mock the bartender, take a look at the people in the Dominican Republic and see how poor they are, $1 is a lot of money to them. The next day, to stop the "joke", the manager served the bar instead and refused to leap for the tip. The American's were outraged and actually complained to the resort until they put their "jumper" back. When they went right back to humiliating him for kicks, dad complained to the resort which finally put a stop to it.

It isn't hard to see why other countries don't like the US. The sad part is that the US has a lot of nice people in it, but the assholes tend to stick out.

Curious why didint you say anything to them or your father, Im one of those evil americans you talk about and I would of picked the dollar up and handed it to the bartender and then hope the 2 assholes say something. Im ashamed that people do that to anyone I have bartended for 12yrs and I can tell you for a fact americans are not the only assholes out there.

[Kylere]

Of course we are still better than the major colonizing powers. No genocide lately...

How do you qualify lately? Because if you're talking less than 200 years, that's probably a borderline, or flat wrong statement.

Actually as an American Indian I blame the French and the British for establishing the genocidal practices that the United States inherited.

[miir]

Actually as an American Indian I blame the French

I think we can all blame the French for something.

[Kylere]

What's sad that it takes shit like this has to happen before some of you realise why people around the world hate Americans?

I hate travelling to destinations where a lot of US citizens go. I swear you folks leave all the nice people home and just let the obnoxious folks travel because I have US friends (some on VV) that are awesome so I know you are not all jerks

Last year my folks went to the Dominican to a resort with a swim up bar. Two US men were drinking at the bar, and instead of tipping the bar tender, they'd throw the $1 tip into the water and get the completely humiliated bartender to jump over the bar, into the water after it (clothes and all). Before you mock the bartender, take a look at the people in the Dominican Republic and see how poor they are, $1 is a lot of money to them. The next day, to stop the "joke", the manager served the bar instead and refused to leap for the tip. The American's were outraged and actually complained to the resort until they put their "jumper" back. When they went right back to humiliating him for kicks, dad complained to the resort which finally put a stop to it.

It isn't hard to see why other countries don't like the US. The sad part is that the US has a lot of nice people in it, but the assholes tend to stick out.

Curious why didint you say anything to them or your father, Im one of those evil americans you talk about and I would of picked the dollar up and handed it to the bartender and then hope the 2 assholes say something. Im ashamed that people do that to anyone I have bartended for 12yrs and I can tell you for a fact americans are not the only assholes out there.

I would have given the bartender two bucks and told the two of them to fuck off, of course being large and mean looking lets me do shit like this. In case you think this is theoretical it is not, I ran into an asshole American in Venice harrasing the hell out of some poor dude selling pictures, I paid the dude off and told the loser exactly what was wrong with him. This asshole was the screaming louder in english because that translates it automatically type, who refused to pay the directly posted prices AFTER he had a picture taken. He kept saying "They are supposed to bargain", I kept saying "You are a dumb fuck who needs to stop reading 50 year old travel guides"

[Dregor Thule]

Curious why didint you say anything to them or your father, Im one of those evil americans you talk about and I would of picked the dollar up and handed it to the bartender and then hope the 2 assholes say something. Im ashamed that people do that to anyone I have bartended for 12yrs and I can tell you for a fact americans are not the only assholes out there.

Like she said she knows not all Americans are puffed-up blow-hards, just that the ones that are leave the biggest marks, and yes, there are a lot of them. She probably didn't say anything because I gather she wasn't there.

[Kylere]

I really wish the stupid ass Brits would have not done such a pathetic job of drawing maplines and left the world so fucked

wtfomg.
what's more likely to be causing the problems now - the actions of Britain close to 100 years ago or cold-war manipulation of national politics in client states across the globe?
Iraq is a mess because the US put Saddam in power to prevent a (democratically elected) socialist government taking control.
Afghanistan is a mess because everyone completely forgets that the place is unconquerable and unpacifiable. Ask every "great power" for the last 200 years. They all tried and they all got buttfucked.
Israel, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan - all cold war victims.
N Korea - cold war.
Indonesia, the Phillipines, SE Asia in general - well blame the french

Honestly Tanc, I have done a lot of reading on this, if you look at the middle eastern history, the Brits and French really have screwed the pooch from the crusades forward. Blaming the US is like blaming your kid sister for being born.

-Iraq is a mess, and it is partly the responsibility of the US but you ignore who drew the maps and country lines across ethnic and cultural boundries and made them all nightmarish client states ( ENGLAND)
-Afghanistan same same as Iraq, and add in Soviet fuckups
-Israel is entirely the fault of the British, read about the creation of the -Israeli state, it is a very interesting mixture of force majere and ignorance.
-Eqypt - Other than the gunning down of presidents in the open, they are remarkably stable, but I promise you that minus one canal they would be just as hosed.
-Syria, Lebanon, Jordan British 60% French 25% other European powers 5%, the cold war 10%
-North Korea This is the fault of the UN, and the cold war. Of course you could always debate that North Korea is the way it is, because it chose to be.
-Vietnam, Cambodia, that entire region. Yeah, the french almost unilaterally blew it, and we picked up blowing it where they left off. The US has always felt the rest of the world should be open and willing to trade ( see Perry sailing into Japan as an example) and it is a flawed concept. Their cultures would be better off left entirely to themselves and we should respect that. While they tend to be barbaric in relation to the most western liberal view, they do nto feel that way internally. I say let them do as they wish.

The cold war issues were directly related to the legacy left by the major european colonizing powers, they all ( Maybe the dutch deserve a break , they were the best of the lot) were textbook examples of how NOT to do things. From the conquistadores to Ghandi, Europe et al, blew it.

[vn_Tanc]

I have done a lot of reading on this, if you look at the middle eastern history, the Brits and French really have screwed the pooch from the crusades forward. Blaming the US is like blaming your kid sister for being born

Oh puh-lease. Certainly the Crusades are hardly the most glorious of historical episodes yet somehow the muslim world recovered and spent several hundred years after the crusades leading the western world in power, science, art and importing those things TO the west.

Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan - who is to say which of these "problem areas" might have matured and changed without 50 years of cold-war meddling?
I've also read up on Israel and yes it was the last-but-one screw-up of the dieing British Empire. But then the UN drew up a workable solution after the "zionist land-grab". What happened to that again?

Egypt is the original wellspring of militant islamic terrorism. Stable but arguably oppressive and an ex-soviet client of the cold war. But you're well read on the topic, right?

The cold war issues were directly related to the legacy left by the major european colonizing powers

Directly related yes. But to a truly inconsequential degree. Scoring points off the opposing superpower was ALWAYS the overriding concern of the cold-war.

they all ( Maybe the dutch deserve a break , they were the best of the lot) were textbook examples of how NOT to do things. From the conquistadores to Ghandi, Europe et al, blew it

And now the US is merrily stoping along in our footsteps with hardly a clue but a big load of noise. And never a look over the shoulder to learn from history. At least the old powers had the (admittedly slim) defence of being several hundred years more ignorant than humanity at large is now.

[Lynxe]

She probably didn't say anything because I gather she wasn't there.

Dregor is right, I wasn't there. My father did say something Cart, so did other people but It made no difference (big shock). I've worked as a bartnender for years as well and that is where I got the worst impression of "Americans". There are a lot of good people in the US, but while everywhere has it's share of village idiots, the US has definitly earned its reputation.

[Cartalas]

She probably didn't say anything because I gather she wasn't there.

Dregor is right, I wasn't there. My father did say something Cart, so did other people but It made no difference (big shock). I've worked as a bartnender for years as well and that is where I got the worst impression of "Americans". There are a lot of good people in the US, but while everywhere has it's share of village idiots, the US has definitly earned its reputation.

Well Sorry it happened and im glad your father said something.

[Kylere]

Tanc,

You said "Oh puh-lease. Certainly the Crusades are hardly the most glorious of historical episodes yet somehow the muslim world recovered and spent several hundred years after the crusades leading the western world in power, science, art and importing those things TO the west. "

The problem here Tanc is you are approaching this from a western mindset, many many people in the middle east hold a grudge about the crusades still. You can say they should get over it, but culturally they have not.

you then said "Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan - who is to say which of these "problem areas" might have matured and changed without 50 years of cold-war meddling?"

I think of them Iraq had the best chance because of revenue base, but they did not do anything with it, yes it was because of meddling partially but if the Brits had not created countries where part of the populace had centuries of hatreds for other parts they would have been much more likely to succeed. But to the Brits, you were in one of two categories, British, or not british.

You said, "I've also read up on Israel and yes it was the last-but-one screw-up of the dieing British Empire. But then the UN drew up a workable solution after the "zionist land-grab". What happened to that again?"

Idiocy happened to that, I think we should ( as a nation) have let Israel stand or fail on its own since the 60's.

You said, "Egypt is the original wellspring of militant islamic terrorism. Stable but arguably oppressive and an ex-soviet client of the cold war. But you're well read on the topic, right? "

I did not say it was great, but compared to Lebanon it is a glowing example of middle eastern success


You said, " Scoring points off the opposing superpower was ALWAYS the overriding concern of the cold-war.

I agree entirely, but those ooportunities where most times the result of failed European imperialism

You said, "And now the US is merrily stoping along in our footsteps with hardly a clue but a big load of noise. And never a look over the shoulder to learn from history. At least the old powers had the (admittedly slim) defence of being several hundred years more ignorant than humanity at large is now. "

I have never implied that I expected humans to get more intelligent, the world super powers have always repeated the mistakes of the Romans, and rarely achieved their successes.

[Chidoro]

It doesn't happen often but what can I say, I largely agree w/ Ky on this one

[Dregor Thule]

Comparatively, the French treated the Indians much better than the English, but neither came close to the Americans. Not pointing fingers, just saying. That was a long time ago, no one now can be held accountable for it.

[Pahreyia]

Surprisingly I agree with Kylere on his points.. Well put.

As far as the Indians/Native Americans are concerned, we may not be holding any one person or people accountable but the United States is certainly compensating them now with economic assistance packages, reservations, tax exemptions and law exemptions (in regards to Casinos in California to name one).

It's hardly a clean slate scenario as far as Native Americans are concerned right now. Look at what is happening at the University of Illinois with their mascot that a great deal of the school body wants to keep. Their state senator or legislator is auditing the school to see if tax money that went in to the school was spent on supporting the school mascot, and if so, he's going to pull the plug on the school's funding until they drop the mascot because less than half of a percent of the population of the state are up in arms about an acrobatic indian chief.

[vn_Tanc]

The problem here Tanc is you are approaching this from a western mindset, many many people in the middle east hold a grudge about the crusades still. You can say they should get over it, but culturally they have not

I disagree with your assertion that Arabs have harboured smouldering resentment over the crusades for 1000 years without a break. The crusades are often quoted NOW by resentful Arabs but that's hardly surprising. But in the centuries I mentioned when Arab culture was supreme I doubt it was the case. In short I think they did "get over it" but now have picked up on that resentment again as a symbol of all the other resentment they now feel.

I think of them Iraq had the best chance because of revenue base, but they did not do anything with it, yes it was because of meddling partially but if the Brits had not created countries where part of the populace had centuries of hatreds for other parts they would have been much more likely to succeed. But to the Brits, you were in one of two categories, British, or not british

I'm not going to argue with your facts or even your colouring of us Brits. But we were booted out of Iraq 60-some years ago. The area would undoubtedly be more stable if it was broken up along ethnic lines but there is resistance to this across the board. I have no idea why. Sure, 90 years ago we drew out a country with nice straight borders. You can choose to blame the current situation on that but I'm going to stick to my guns and say the more recent 60 years of meddling has more to do with it.

I agree entirely, but those ooportunities where most times the result of failed European imperialism

So the US and Soviets couldn't help themselves - they just HAD to interfere. So it's Europe's fault.
Gotcha.

[Kylere]

Tanc,

You should not be taking this so personally, it is not your fault, not like you are 400 years old and sitting in the House of Lords.

Not to beat a dead horse on this, but the Muslim ( not Arab, but Muslim) world has always had a thing about the Crusades, they may have been a leading power at times, but that did not mean they remembered western Europe in a fond manner. I am sure they repeat it more often now for political purposes, but it is always there. I am sure that 5 centuries from now and assuming we are still around, people will bitch about genocide of native populations, slavery, the Holocaust, Stalin's 12 million deaths, Pol Pot etc. things like this stay in our cultural conscious without fail.

England blew it when they were the Man, now we are blowing it. I would like to say that only the US blew Native arrangements so I felt better about humanity as a whole, but her Majesties people slapped around the aborigines in Austrailia so bad, they are still trying to recover a sense of community. It took Ghandi deciding to step up in the 4th quarter with his team down by 700 points to free India. In the late 30's England had a chance to keep a dude in Germany down, and they were so sloppy diplomatically that the word Neville may as well mean capitulate, and the world fought the largest war known to mankind. If the Brits and the French would have grown up a little instead of fighting each other for centuries think how much better of a world the place would have been. Not to mention the bastards aced Joan of Arc (and Mila Jovovich is a hottie, well this part was not serious, but it is VV)

All in all it is easy to sit in Europe and critique how the Americans are doing now that the sun never sits on our Empire, but since our death toll has not hot the hundreds of millions mark yet, we still have a lot of messing up to do to equal the Brits, when it comes to mass murder, wars fought without reason, racial strife, suppression of native Populations, ignorance of local cultures, etc. Well, simply put, Britain OWNS the US.

Don't get me wrong, I like Britain, I recognize the common heritage we share with you, and I see it in all of our actions both good and bad. We have a president getting blow jobs, and you have a prince fucking an ugly chick while he has a hot wife. We have presidents starting wars on bad intelligence, you have Queens and PM's fighting Argentina over the 2300 people that live there and more people dying in the war than it even involved. We have wiping out native populations, you have wiping out native populations, we have going to war over oil, you have going to war over tea, we have using our spies to create a casus belli, you have the same, we have nutty idiots burning things over a team they will never meet winning sporting events, you have bloody idiots killing each other over a game that ended 0-0.

Did the US and Soviets HAVE to interfere? Nope, and in some cases they should not have, but if the hand off had been a little cleaner from the end of the age of Victoria to the Roosevelt Age, then perhaps we would not have had 100 little hotspots all over the planet.

[Sueven]

we have going to war over oil, you have going to war over tea

And Opium!

[Bojangels]

I don't think the guys who did this stuff should take the brunt of the punishment. They need to start demoting some Generals if they want to put a quick stop to this kind of behavior. The BGen who was in charge of that place and had no idea what was going on in her own base needs to be made an example of. All of this could have been prevented with some real leadership.

Oh and trying to blame Rumsfeld or the President for this kind of stuff is ridiculous.

[miir]

Oh and trying to blame Rumsfeld or the President for this kind of stuff is ridiculous

Are they not ultimately responsible for what goes on there?
Chain of command and all that....

[Drolgin Steingrinder]

All of this could have been prevented with some real leadership.

Like, say, some real leadership from the oval office?

[Cartalas]

All of this could have been prevented with some real leadership.

Like, say, some real leadership from the oval office?

Like Monica?

[Dregor Thule]

All of this could have been prevented with some real leadership.

Like, say, some real leadership from the oval office?

Like Monica?

I'm going to make a bold statement here and say she'd do at least as good of a job as Bush does. Hell, I'll go a step further and say YOU could do at least the same job Bush is doing. Perhaps even better. Can you read a teleprompter and pronounce common words?

[Cartalas]

All of this could have been prevented with some real leadership.

Like, say, some real leadership from the oval office?

Like Monica?

I'm going to make a bold statement here and say she'd do at least as good of a job as Bush does. Hell, I'll go a step further and say YOU could do at least the same job Bush is doing. Perhaps even better. Can you read a teleprompter and pronounce common words?

Hu?

[Dregor Thule]

All of this could have been prevented with some real leadership.

Like, say, some real leadership from the oval office?

Like Monica?

I'm going to make a bold statement here and say she'd do at least as good of a job as Bush does. Hell, I'll go a step further and say YOU could do at least the same job Bush is doing. Perhaps even better. Can you read a teleprompter and pronounce common words?

Hu?

See? What did I tell you? Spitting image of Bush.

[Cartalas]

Like, say, some real leadership from the oval office?

Like Monica?

I'm going to make a bold statement here and say she'd do at least as good of a job as Bush does. Hell, I'll go a step further and say YOU could do at least the same job Bush is doing. Perhaps even better. Can you read a teleprompter and pronounce common words?

Hu?

See? What did I tell you? Spitting image of Bush.

[Drasta]

wrong thread =-)

[Bojangels]

Are they not ultimately responsible for what goes on there?
Chain of command and all that....

Sure you can throw around catchy phrases like ultimate responsibility and chain of command, but realistically, he can't be at every base making sure commanders aren't letting their troops sodomize detainees. That's not his job, and it would prevent him from doing his job effectively. Punishment should start at the tops of the bases where this stuff was going on and down from there.

And no Drolgin, not from the white house. I don't know how it works with your king or whatever, but our President shouldn't have to set the guidelines on how our bases are run. He should fire or demote some generals, and I gaurantee that they would turn into such anal hard asses that nothing like this would ever happen again. The President can't really control what happens in prisons in Iraq, but the CGs that are out there with the troops can.

[Drolgin Steingrinder]

Currently, all I see is Bush going for maximum plausible deniability. In my view, saying "It's not our fault, our soldiers screwed up, they're just human." isn't leadership.

What happened to "The buck stops here" ? He had underlings who made the wrong decisions, they had underlings who made the wrong decisions, who had underlings etc etc etc. It's all one long spiral of "I didn't do it, my employees did."

If Bush didn't have any idea what was going on because Rumsfeld didn't have any idea what was going on, then Rumsfeld wasn't doing his job. If Rumsfeld didn't know because the JCOS didn't tell him or didn't know, then *they* weren't doing their job...and the piss trickles down to a few reservists and all can be happy, right?

Screw that.

[vn_Tanc]

The Brigadier General in charge of the prison at the very least has to go.
There should also be some form of censure for the people that selected her for that position.

[Bojangels]

Bush couldn't even claim responsibility for this if he wanted to. White house beauracrats can't do much about things that go on in the field. Even after this big scandal I'd be surprised if they found a way to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future. The troops have to take responsibility for their own.

[Drolgin Steingrinder]

Actually, according to some, we shouldn't really be concerned. Afterall, everyone imprisoned are clearly terrorists, murderers and all-round bad guys, right? There's absolutely no chance that a few random people were arrested on suspicions that turned out to be wrong, right?

[Lynks]

Actually, according to some, we shouldn't really be concerned. Afterall, everyone imprisoned are clearly terrorists, murderers and all-round bad guys, right? There's absolutely no chance that a few random people were arrested on suspicions that turned out to be wrong, right?

I saw him say those things on CNN the other day. It made me change the channel.

[Arborealus]

Actually, according to some, we shouldn't really be concerned. Afterall, everyone imprisoned are clearly terrorists, murderers and all-round bad guys, right? There's absolutely no chance that a few random people were arrested on suspicions that turned out to be wrong, right?

I saw him say those things on CNN the other day. It made me change the channel.

Don't change the channel write down the name...And let your congressional reps know how you feel about people who say things like that...