I'm a Republican and this is scary

Originally posted by Tristan > Originally posted by bLuE oRdEr> > > > Originally posted by Tristan> > going to a practically useless war in Kosovo, letting millions die in Rwanda (the very Democratic thing to do)>

So in Kosovo, preventing genocide was the wrong thing to do, and in Rwanda, not preventing genocide was the wrong thing to do? And that's why the Republicans spent years, and millions of taxpayer dollars investigating a BJ?

thousands died in Kosovo

millions died in Rwanda

Casualty figures for the Rwandan genocide range from 500,000 to 800,000; add another 200,000 deaths in Burundi since 1993, and you have anywhere from 700,000 to 1 million casualties. Britannica.

The Yugoslav wars—four of them—resulted 200,000 casualties, and 2.5 million refugees. Encarta. ERIC Clearinghouse. There were nearly 1.7 million Kosovars in 1999. Fact-Index.

Was it wrong to step in before 1.7 million Kosovars were killed or displaced? Does the fact that we did nothing in Rwanda invalidate later attempts to prevent genocide? Should we therefore stay out of Darfur, because we did nothing in Rwanda? Should we have gone to Rwanda, but not to Kosovo? Or should we do nothing whenever genocide rears its ugly head?

Your comparison of respective casualties raises a lot of unanswered questions, including why the Republican leadership became fixated on a BJ when other, perhaps more important things were happening in the world…

When I talk about Kosovo, I'm mentioning the reasoning we used to go and fight the Serbs in support of Kosovars. We thought a genocide of the Albanians was happening, and where a few thousands (actually closer to 1500 in 1998) died.

When I talked about Rwanda, I used that country's name to define the entire area in which about a million died in 1994 (and many more died before the escalation in 1994).

Originally posted by Tristan When I talk about Kosovo, I'm mentioning the reasoning we used to go and fight the Serbs in support of Kosovars. We thought a genocide of the Albanians was happening, and where a few thousands (actually closer to 1500 in 1998) died.

"The war caused inflicted many casualties. Yugoslavia claimed that NATO attacks caused between 1,200 and 5,700 civilian casualties. Human Rights Watch claims a total of only 500 civilian deaths occurred in 90 separate incidents. NATO acknowledged killing at most 1,500 civilians. The majority of deaths appear to have been within Kosovo itself; there were up to 5,000 military casualties according to NATO estimates, while the Serbian figure is around 1,000. Large numbers of Albanian civilians were also killed, although the exact numbers are unclear. Early predictions of hundreds of thousands of deaths proved untrue, but in the months after the war some 4,500 mostly Albanian bodies were dug up around Kosovo. Some mass graves were also found in Serbia itself, on Yugoslav military bases or dumped in the Danube. The total number of Albanian dead is generally believed to be around 10,000, although the true figure is unlikely ever to be knwn as some of the largest mass graves were cleared before the war's end in an apparent effort to obliterate potential war crimes evidence. The International Red Cross compiled a list of over 3,000 missing Albanians. Most of them turned out to be prisoners transfered to Serbia, and have been released, although some 1,000 are reported to still be in Serbia today. Around 1,500 Serbian civilians were reported missing, believed dead." Fact-Index.

In hindsight, it's easy to use the relatively low casualties to dismiss the decision to step in. But in 1999, the world didn't have the advantage of hindsight; the world did know that Milosevic had already fought three separate wars in that decade; the world knew that casualties were already in the hundreds of thousands, and refugees were in the millions; the world knew that there were 1.7 million Kosovars in Milosevic's sights. The total casualties of Milosevic's wars, including Kosovo, were about 200,000, with 2.5 million refgees.

So at what point would it have been right to stop Milosevic? Before another genocidal war, or after?

When I talked about Rwanda, I used that country's name to define the entire area in which about a million died in 1994 (and many more died before the escalation in 1994).

The total number dead for Rwanda and Burundi is about 1 million....and you still haven't addressed the unanswered questions in your comparison between the two conflicts...

I'm saying that it would've been a better use of our time to act in Rwanda than in Kosovo, where we in effect assisted the KLA (who attempted to invade Macedonia shortly after our action in Kosovo. Our entire action in all of the Yugoslav wars was suspect (the Croat leader was just as much of a cunt as Slobodan).

IMO Milosevic's actions are comparable to the Israelis (with the Palestinians) and the Russians (with the Chechens). Our action against Serbia was suspect, for if we were so damn concerned with such conflicts, then we could have sent troops to Israel. Milosevic was dealing with a dissenting minority concentrated in one part of his country, and the Albanians were notorious for terrorist actions. We entered a war in which both sides were dirty. We did not have to take action. We wholeheartedly believed the stories of hundreds of thousands dead in mass graves, but that never came to fruition.

You're right.

:moon:

Oops, wrong smiley; I meant to use this one:

And now we end our session of Crossfire.

Originally posted by The Man Up North Tristan, just out of curiosity, why are you a Republican?

Yeah, why support the IRA? Or is it that you want to abolish the Royal family?

Originally posted by 404 error > Originally posted by The Man Up North> Tristan, just out of curiosity, why are you a Republican?

Yeah, why support the IRA? Or is it that you want to abolish the Royal family?

I'm a Republican from the US, but hell removing the Royal family would be great, wouldn't it!?

it makes me sick to my stomach to think that bush might be re-elected. am i a democrat, no. but kerry doesn't believe (or won't believe) he rules by divine right, as bush does (according to many white house staffers)!

Originally posted by The Man Up North > Originally posted by Tristan> > > > > > > Originally posted by The Man Up North> > Tristan, just out of curiosity, why are you a Republican?>

Clinton

Well, Clinton is gone, so that's not good enough of a reason. I watched the DVD of Fahreinheit 9/11 yesterday and can't believe that half of the population of the U.S. intend to vote for Bush again on the next election. Are you so misinformed Tristan, or do you just don't care? About 80% of the population of every other country in the world wants Bush out also, by the way... WAKE UP AMERICA BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Clinton was one of the primary reasons why I first started to lean to the right, that and my economics teacher in 11th grade.

I've not bothered to watch Fahrenheit 9/11 because of Moore's history of lying in his docu... mockumentaries. I'm sure there are good explanations for nearly all of Moore's points in his film. Anyways, it doesn't matter what 80% of the world think about this election, the American people need to elect the person who they believe will serve them best, and right now it's a dead heat (but I think Bush does have the edge now in the battleground states and could very easily win the electoral college again without winning the popular vote).

Originally posted by AgentWood it makes me sick to my stomach to think that bush might be re-elected. am i a democrat, no. but kerry doesn't believe (or won't believe) he rules by divine right, as bush does (according to many white house staffers)!

The religious right does sicken me, but I don't truly believe they are the ones who have the most control in the Bush White House. Hopefully Bush can get elected and then get shot so Cheney could be president along with Colin Powell as VP.

My problem with the Democrats is that their policy ventures have consistently contradicted themselves and plain do not make sense to me in the long run. The Republicans have their own problems that cannot be ignored, but they hail in comparison to Democratic policy IMO.

Tris, Cheney is president already...didn't you know that?

The religious right to me should just drop the whole "Christian" label because they give a bad name to real Christians. Jesus was a uniter, not a divider (slight pun at Dubya there), I don't think he or God gives a tinker's damn about whether someone's "liberal" or not. We were given the capacity of free will, and while we do have rules for society we should never surrender fully to the rule of law when our own common sense dictates differently. I hate the idea of "big government" telling us what to do, but what Bushies forget is the government is becoming more intrusive and bigger thanks to Bush. he's about the biggest "big government liberal" since FDR.

Anyway, America needs a change, we can't keep on this path that the Religious Right is trying to put us on. Our government is seperate from religion for a reason.

This message was brought to you by "The Blame-America-First Jew-Run Liberal Media and Pro-Abortion Baby Killers who worship Satan and Love The Godless French" :p

Originally posted by The Man Up North Dick Cheney is a very dangerous man (so is Donald Rumsfeld). You're nuts to want him as president. Mark my words: if Bush is reelected, the United States will start to lose their most precious allies, and I am counting CANADA among them... yes!!! Did you know that most people living in your friendly northern neighbour is absolutely sick of the administration your country is being run by right now??? What will you do when Canada, France and mostly Europe, including the U.K. once Blair moves to his new house, plus every oriental country minus maybe Japan will turn against you? Do you think the United States are so overwhelming that they can dictate their views to the entire world no matter what? Do you really think that 9/11 was something big comparing to what might happen in the future if you've got the whole world against you? There is a steep price for being arrogant. History has taught that if you do not learn its lessons, you will eventually pay for it. 9/11 should have been a huge lesson for the United States -- because of their way of dealing with things and dealing with the world: in an arrogant way. The polls are showing right now that no lesson has been learned by half of the american people. That is a very serious matter and, to me, it shows either how ignorant or how arrogant half of that country is. VOTE KERRY BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE !!!!!!!!!!! AVOID THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE !!!!!!!!!!

Unless the EU finally becomes a unified quasi-government (impossible because of each country's desire for sovereignty) or the Chinese economy grows astronomically (it's growing fast, but it would have to have an exponential increase upon its current growth), then under Bush we will not have a problem of facing another threatening superpower that could possibly topple the United States. So what you say is fucking hogwash and 4 more years of unrelenting arrogance!

Actually, 3 more weeks...

Originally posted by bLuE oRdEr Actually, 3 more weeks...

well if he does lose then we will get some weeks of lame duck arrogance

Spotnick said..

"I'd love to hear why Bush didn't try something in Sudan lately... Apparently, when there is no financial interest for the US, they don't do a thing..."

hello. The US has been the only nation to bring about awareness to this tragedy. Colin Powell has called it genocide. He has asked the UN to do something about it. (is not a Sudanese the head of the UN Human Rights Council??) The world ignores this waiting for the US to unilaterally intervene.

Originally posted by The Man Up North How come the american administration DID NOT WAIT for the U.N. inspectors to finish their work before making a unilateral and illegal military intervention into the sovereign country of Irak ?

Black gold (and not the kind from those South Dakotan hills )

Maybe we thought the UN was not performing their job correctly, maybe it was taking too long. Anyways, Saddam is out, and as long as we set up a reasonable stable government, then Iraq will be a much better place.

Originally posted by Spotnick Hum, now that the Canadian $ is worth 80 cents US (it was 62 cents a year ago!), I'm starting to believe it would be a good thing for us to let Mr Bush be in charge of the US Who knows, we might get to 1$ by the end of his presidency ;)

Well American officials have purposefully tried to weaken the dollar so that foreigners would choose to buy more and more American goods and that Americans would not buy so many foreign goods. Essentially American officials want to affect our atrocious trade balance.

Originally posted by The Man Up North That has strictly nothing to do with it! The « strength » of a currency is based on the strength of the economy of the country compared to the strength of the economy of another country. The trade balance is only one factor among many others who have influence on the value of a currency, although not a small one, I agree. It's not a secret for anyone that the U.S. economy has been virtually ongoing, thanks to that debt service. If nothing changes soon in your politics, your country is going to live the most serious economic depression since 1920 !

Ooh the skies are falling, and this country will be destroyed! Nearly 2 million jobs created in the past year, and when energy prices begin to straighten out, then expect the economy to rebound even stronger, and then we will pay our debts.

Originally posted by Tristan > Originally posted by The Man Up North> That has strictly nothing to do with it! The « strength » of a currency is based on the strength of the economy of the country compared to the strength of the economy of another country. The trade balance is only one factor among many others who have influence on the value of a currency, although not a small one, I agree. It's not a secret for anyone that the U.S. economy has been virtually ongoing, thanks to that debt service. If nothing changes soon in your politics, your country is going to live the most serious economic depression since 1920 !

Ooh the skies are falling, and this country will be destroyed! Nearly 2 million jobs created in the past year, and when energy prices begin to straighten out, then expect the economy to rebound even stronger, and then we will pay our debts.

the worst job creation record since WWII, more like! a net loss!

p.s. i'm not a democrat...in case you're wondering. ;)

Yes a net loss, especially because we went through a recession and 9/11...