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Re: wake and smell the fucking coffee

>Ok, I've had enough of this crap.

Yee-haw!  That's *one* way to start a new thread!

>Are people just stupid or is it that we
>just can't carry a thought to its logical conclusion any more?  Or maybe its
>just the typical American provincial view point at work.

Or maybe it's that you're wrong, or maybe it's that there *is* no logical
conclusion, or maybe it's that space aliens have taken over the minds of all the
OtR listies...  ;)

>Isolationism is
>never the answer, if history is anything to go by.

Really?  Care to back that up with some actual history, rather than simply
alluding to ambiguity?  An excellent case can be (and has been) made for
isolationism, y'know.

>Why do people think,
>just because its happening somewhere else,  that we should not concern
>ourselves with it?

Because it has nothing to do with us, and we've got our own problems to worry
about.  (Not saying that I agree with that, necessarily, but you asked why)

>Are we really that selfish for us to condone horrific
>deeds just because they are not happening in this country?

Who's condoning anything?  Failure to intervene would have no reflection on
whether or not we *condoned* what was going on.  Good grief.

>Does the
>concern for our fellow men (and women) stop at the artificial national
>borders?


Concern?  No.  Ability and/or right to interfere, very possibly.  We made the
borders, and no matter how big and fat and powerful we get, we're expected by the
rest of the world to abide by them and what they imply.

>I personally believe what is wrong is wrong. It doesn't matter if it is
>happening next door or the next continent over.

I don't think anyone would disagree with that statement.

>And if we can do something
>about it, we should.

Why?  If you're going to make that assertion, you'll have to do better than...

>it is the morally RIGHT thing to do,

According to whom?  According to you?  Okay.  What about everyone else?  What
about all the people who feel that it is the morally WRONG thing to do?  Does your
opinion outweigh theirs?  If so, why?

>And to prove to the cynics that,
>yes, USA will use its military, even when no oil interest is involved.

Yeah, yeah.  That's a *great* reason to go to war.  To prove a goddamn *point* to
those pesky cynics!

>Secondly,   the Balkans can be a flash point for something much bigger, and
>if we can contain it to a regional crisis before it spreads across borders,
>then it is the wise thing to do.  Once it spreads, its going to take much
>more lives and equipment to deal with it.

Now, here you're starting to make a little more sense.  The idea that Milosevic
(sp?) will spread his wickedness is and should be, IMO, the primary concern of
NATO.  The troubling question is, of course, what evidence do we have that he'll
do that?  And at what point do we have the right to interfere?  What if France
decided that they couldn't just sit by and let Clinton be acquitted in his Senate
trial, so they decided to bomb us?  How would you feel?  Do they have a right to
tell us how to run our own country?  What if they feel that our decision was an
atrocity?  Does that give them the right to interfere?  You see, the questions are
a tad more complicated than you make them out to be.

>And for those misguided people
>out there, arrogance is not the cause that we are over there.  with the down
>fall of the USSR, we are the only super power left in the world, whether we
>like it or not.

Actually, with the downfall of the USSR, "superpower" status (in any meaningful
sense) is really up for grabs to the highest bidder.  What makes one a
"superpower" anyway?  Isn't it, in the end, really just the ability to nuke other
countries?

>For us to
>do nothing is like us announcing to the world that we no longer cared what's
>going on

That's ludicrous.  Failure to interfere could mean any number of things.

>Evil must be opposed, and all it takes for evil to flourish is for good
>people to do nothing, and ethnic cleansing fits my definition of an evil
>deed.

It doesn't fit everyone's definition, though, does it?

>But i guess doing the right thing doesn't mean much these days
>anymore to most people.

That's a load of inflammatory bullcrap, now, isn't it?  The fact that someone
doesn't agree with you method of morality is not *remotely* enough evidence to
determine whether or not "doing the right thing" is important to them.

>To take a page out of history, had the allies
>opposed Nazi Germany's invasion of the Sudetenland (it was a part of
>Czechslovakia), maybe WWII wouldn't have happened.

Perhaps, but unlikely.  There was far too much political tension in Europe to
think that *some* kind of conflict wouldn't have erupted eventually.

>Historians have been
>debating such what if topics for the last 40 years.

And they always will.  But "what if" scenarios from 50 years ago don't tell us
anything about the here and now.  Sure, we can learn from the past, but I find it
highly unlikely that we can learn from the *imaginary* past.

>And this time when we
>have the chance to do something about it, and are doing it, all I hear is
>belly aching about how its not our problem.

You don't think that our country should cure it's own ills before spreading
ourselves thinner?  How can a sick and dying country hope to help others when it
can't even help itself?  We're in trouble here, friend, and while other countries
are having their troubles too, we really ought to make sure that our fortress is
secure before we go flaunting.

>When does it becomes our
>problem?  When two countries are involved, maybe three?  Or is it going to
>take a whole continent going up in flames...?


Oh, I don't know.  When did Vietnam become our problem?  We really nipped that one
in the bud, didn't we?  And thank goodness...

>The least we can do is not complain about our country and the political
>leadership trying to do the right thing, for once.


The right thing?  You honestly think that's what this is all about?  Don't make me
start talking about our political leadership and it's cozy relationship with
fucking *China*.  Our "leadership" doesn't give a rat's tail about doing the
"right thing", my friend.  It's all about politics.

Feeling argumentative today.   :)

Paul Christian Glenn      |  "Besides being complicated,
trance at radiks_net         |  reality, in my experience, is
http://x-real.firinn.org  |  usually odd."  - C.S. Lewis

Now Reading: "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien
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