Thread: How can you reason with this madman?

  1. #16
    Registered User Aran's Avatar
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    "you can't reason with madmen"

    that is the exact reason why the US are trying to kill one as we speak.

  2. #17
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    >The best thing we could ever do is to get electric cars perfected.

    LOL! Eletrical...so unamerican
    Dude101 =) LALALALALALALALA

  3. #18
    Registered User Aran's Avatar
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    yay, america: where we try to be as expensive and enviromentally detrimental as possible while we say we are so "hug a tree"-ish...

    wave flags.

  4. #19
    Linguistic Engineer... doubleanti's Avatar
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    ::raises hand::... tree hugger much as i can be given me circumstances...
    hasafraggin shizigishin oppashigger...

  5. #20
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    Oh! Come on!!

    You can't possibly be serious!

    You can't possibly ignore all the US Government has done in the Middle East. You can't possibly expect anyone to take it with a smile.

    Now, i'm not saying that hijacking planes and crashing them into buildings full of -by some criteria- innocent people is right, or the answer to anything; but you have to admit that it is pretty much the only way they have left to make their screams of pain be heard.

    For one second put yourself in their position. How would you feel if the Taliban had been bombing and killing your people for decades? How would you feel if you didn't have any food, no job, no water, nothing, just because some foreign super-power established an authoritarian government in your country just so that it could get cheap oil. How would you feel if this same super-power aided your worst enemies in their ravaging of your towns, your people, your country, your land? Would you like this super-power? Would you just sit there idly and starve to death? Would you?

    Of course, most of us wouldn't hijack planes and kill thousands of people that don't really have anything to do with that. But after so many years of terror one would tend to loose one's mind, and become such a "religious madman" as we all have witnessed on worldwide television.

    Now all that really needs be done is some crucial changes in US Foreign Policy, that is all. Although, i must agree, that the disintegration of such entities as the Taliban is a good deed in itself, it is better to eliminate what causes such entities -the aforementioned US Foreign Policy- than the entities themselves, for the obvious reason that they would just keep coming back.

    As to whether any of the people in this board were born in third-wolrd countries, i was. And have lived in it all my life, no matter how short a life it may be. I also, though not personally for i hadn't been born yet, have had the experience of my home country being invaded by US Military Troops to install a Government that suit its interestes best; not once but three times. I believe this enables me to empathize with the people of Afghanistan a bit more than you can, assuming that you are all US citizens.

    "Think about what would happen then, Rob. Iraq or any of those countries could try and take over all of the other countries and restrict our supply of oil, or make us pay 100x more than we do. I'm MORE than convinced that would happen. We need troops in there to make sure that they don't get too greedy with the oil." -KEN-

    Even if those countries tried to take over their neighbouring countries, that's what diplomacy is for. If that doesn't work, then you might have an excuse for military intervention. But then again it would be easier for the US Government just to stop selling them weapons, now wouldn't it?

    Furthermore, raising the price in such a manner is not viable, for no one would buy it. And prices can be negotiated peacefully.

    By the way, has it ever occured to you that those governments who might want to raise the price of THEIR oil may actually NEED the extra money? As opposed to the US Government that has all the money it could ever want and just keeps wasting it on warfare; it is plainly obvious to any observer that if the US Government did not spend such an incredibly large portion of its income on warfare but spent it on betters thing like Social Security and Education it would be, beyond shadow of a doubt, the country with the best quality of life for its citizens.

    Am i wrong in inferring from your statement (-KEN-) that it would cause you no remorse, but in fact be completely justified in your mind, to go to any supermarket and, at gun point, demand the owner to sell you HIS goods at the price you see fit?

    adios,
    biterman.

  6. #21
    free(me);
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    That last post was made by me.

    I seem to have taken too long in writting and was automatically logged out and the post treated as one of an unregistred user.

    One small discrepancy in my previous post... i was born in a Third World Country, and did live in it for the whole of my years but am now an exchange student in Finland, as you can easily appreciate from the Location given in my Personal Information.

    For a short list of things the US Government has done, or been responsible for in the Middle East, here's a link to a small article on the subject:

    http://www.zmag.org/shalomhate.htm
    Last edited by biterman; 10-11-2001 at 12:01 AM.
    Do you know how contemptous they are of you?

  7. #22
    _B-L-U-E_ Betazep's Avatar
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    >>>just because some foreign super-power established an authoritarian government in your country just so that it could get cheap oil. How would you feel if this same super-power aided your worst enemies in their ravaging of your towns, your people, your country, your land? Would you like this super-power? Would you just sit there idly and starve to death? Would you? <<<

    You get your history from a guy named Stephen Shalom?

    Lets go back a little further... Jeruselem.

    Owned by the jews.... the holy land (or area) of Isreal was the same. Then came a considerable amount persecution and relocation. Then Britain (check your history books) gave back Isreal to the Jews and kicked out the Palestinians... the US backed this effort. It was rightfully their holy land... Muslims disagreed because they wanted the rich holy land and the Jews had been gone so long because they were getting slaughtered like cattle.

    Modern day Isreal is fenced in. The Isreal government doesn't go out of their way to go.... how did you put it.... "ravage" towns, people or land and neither does the US. They are completely content with the land they have. Large quantities of diamonds are there.... and it is their holy land. What happens on a regular basis is that jihad members blow up things and people in Isreal, crash gates with the intent to do damage to Isreal citizens, etc... etc... etc...

    Isreal is always saying leave us alone or we will retaliate. They never get left alone... and a lot of times they retaliate.

    Afganistan is at war with itself. That had nothing to do with the US. Now it does... I would like all of it to stop tomorrow if today wasn't an option.

    As far as oil... who are you kidding? Oil is no good in the ground. Who do you think drills for this oil? (Hint the US) Who do you think gets rich off of it? Not the US. Many of these countries cannot even make finished goods. The US delivers to them finished goods, medical supplies, food, resources, and lots and lots of money for their little harems.

    Their political leaders sell them out every day and then point fingers at US as the big bad evil giant.

    And you want a link....

    http://www.israel.org/mfa/home.asp

    how is that for a little history... and damn.... that is only Oct on the top.

    (see my signature if you have any quesitons)
    Blue

  8. #23
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    Thumbs up

    First off, sorry I'm not registered, I haven't bothered yet since the new board (yeah, I know, long time...)

    Just wanted to say I agree 100% with Betazep and would have posted about the same if he hadn't beaten me to it. There are another thousand points in the defense of Israel (ie they were also the majority of the population living there, that is also why they were made a nation when all the boarders were being redrawn after WWII) and I believe the US is right in fully supporting them. Quite frankly, it seems to me the US's only faults are being too generous and not retaliating like it should. We are an easy target. Everyone will never be satisfied with our forein policy. We just need to pick the one that we believe is RIGHT, not most popular, and stick with it.

    I think we have chosen correctly by supporting Israel and providing endless humanitarian $, food, and medicine through out the middle east.

    I think Israel has shown more than enough willingness to be peaceful by sitting down with their Bin Laden (Yasser Arafat) and actually negotiation with him, because the US asked them to. I can't imagine the US doing this. My heart is sick over what the Jews must constantly go through, and I respect their humility and love of peace. If you're looking for an underdog to root for, I refer you to them.

    Anyway, I know this isn't well said, but I'm tired.
    -Justin

  9. #24
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    I actually don't think he's a madman, it's not that I agree with what he's doing, but he must have done what he did (if he actually did it) for a reason, and that reason is years of oppression to his home country, I'm sure that if any of you see your country opressed as his, you would do the same thing (or at least think to), of course, I'm not defending his course of action, but I'm really sure that people on that side of the world see Bush and all americans as madmen. It would be easy to have a war if he's the bad guy, but he's the good guy, and so is bush, it's a goodguy vs goodguy war.

    Think about it

    Oskilian

  10. #25
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    >>We need troops in there to make sure that they don't get too greedy with the oil.


    Why does the United States have to tiptoe so carefully in the Middle East, trying to play one country off against another, careful not to upset certain countries? Why does it even have to get involved in Middle Eastern politics in the first place? One word: Oil. Without the supply of oil that countries such as Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran and others produce, the United States would be in deep trouble. And so, the U.S. government repeatedly finds itself drawn into a volatile morass of shifting allegiances.

    Is there any long-term solution? Environmental activists have recommended for some time that the United States pour billions into alternative energy such as wind power, biomass and fuel cells - but there is no way these technologies could handle a fraction of the current demand for energy from fossil fuels, let alone the growth projected for the coming decades. But where else could the U.S. come up with the oil to satisfy its needs?

    The U.S. government itself mentioned one possible solution in Vice-President Dick Cheney's recent energy report: Alberta's oil sands, a vast ocean of tar-like goo in the northern part of the province. By most estimates, there is more oil in the so-called "tar sands" than there is in all of Saudi Arabia, or about 300 billion barrels that is recoverable using existing technology. That's enough to supply the United States for more than 40 years — plus there's another 1.5 trillion to two trillion barrels on top of that, which would be harder to extract. That's 10 times what Saudi Arabia has.

    Alberta's potential was obvious even before Sept. 11, and those attacks have now added even more fuel to the argument. What if Iraq turns out to be involved in planning the attacks? Even worse, what if Saudi-born terrorist Osama bin Laden decides to turn his wrath against the Saudi royal family, whom he despises for allowing U.S. troops to be stationed in the traditional birthplace of Islam? Saudi Arabia has about one quarter of the world's reserves of conventional oil, and last year it supplied the U.S. with 1.5 million barrels a day, or about 17 per cent of U.S. demand. Almost one-quarter of U.S. demand for oil is supplied by countries in the Persian Gulf.

    One of the reasons why the oil sands haven't played a larger role on the public policy stage is that until fairly recently, getting oil out of the ground in northern Alberta was time-consuming and expensive. Until the mid-1990s, producing a barrel of oil cost upwards of $15 (U.S.). That didn't leave much room for things like profits when the price of oil was at $20 — and it seemed especially ridiculous given that some OPEC countries can produce a barrel of oil for about $5 or less.

    Then Suncor Energy, thanks to prodding by vice-president Dee Parkinson, cut a huge chunk out of its costs starting in 1995 by moving from the balky and expensive bucketwheels it had been using to giant shovels and trucks. Suncor and Syncrude (which copied the move) have cut their costs to $9 a barrel — and that success, combined with the runup in oil prices over the past couple of years, has spurred dozens of imitators to look at oil-sands projects. Conoco, Exxon-Mobil, Shell and other companies both in the United States and elsewhere have done feasibility studies, and more than $20-billion worth of potential oil sands projects are in the planning stages.

    There are also dozens of projects aimed at exploring ways of extracting some of the harder-to-reach oil. The current method is not very different from the Clark hot-water process, which was discovered in the 1920s — and that itself was a refinement of the way early explorers boiled the gooey substance in water over the campfire to produce a tar they could patch their canoes with. Newer methods for extracting the oil involve things such as "steam-assisted gravity drainage," which involves injecting steam into the sand and then forcing the oil to drain out for refining.

    In the 1930s, the U.S. government and several business leaders (including Henry Ford) reportedly looked into extracting oil from Alberta to help meet the growing demand in the United States. But then oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia, and the seeds of OPEC and the energy dominance of the Middle East were sown — something the United States may want to reconsider in the light of current events. And then maybe Canada could take the place of Saudi Arabia in the American universe.
    What's a matter you no like peppi?

  11. #26
    Just one more wrong move. -KEN-'s Avatar
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    >>You can't possibly expect anyone to take it with a smile.



    take that!

    heh - all childishness aside, things have been going both ways...

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