OK I will attempt a conversation with you but I don't really expect you to understand in that I find your remarks about Mexico and its border to be ignorant and racist. In the 21st century if you have not even come to grasp with racism I doubt very seriously you will be able to absorb anything on foreign policy or why this war is SO WRONG...
Your words ?freedom? and ?democracy? -- are the words BUSH used more than 40 times in an 1,800-word address --
it has nothing to do with FREEDOM those are the SHEEPLE words BUSH USES for people like YOU. Little words you can understand that will feed your little egos and you can go around waving your flag and pretend you are doing something. When the truth is you are being used. The Bush Administration is playing war games. They have no respect for human life. They never have had it is simply a way to make money.
FREEDOM is not what happened in Iraq. The Iraqis had no choice, because it was the U.S. government that decided to 'liberate' it. Now, they're faced with what could be a full-blown civil war. Bush thinks it's going to work out, but most experts don't agree.? His own military has told him it is not working. It won't matter one way or the other for Bush. It is no skin off his back. He makes money and he sure won't be fighting or sending his spoiled little brats to fight.
The rhetoric about the United States serving as a beacon for democracy and human freedom doesn't jibe well with the resentment toward the U.S. that is building around the globe and with the chaos that has ensued in Iraq . None of this makes sense to anyone with a brain. You cannot force democracy it goes against the very nature of the word!!!
All you have to do to see how wrong this administrations is and how much it is at odds with its so called freedom march and with President Bush??s pledge to "end tyranny in our world" is to look at the United States?? role as the world??s leading arms exporting nation...
The United States transfers more weapons and military services than any other country in the world. Between 1992 and 2003, the United States sold $177.5 billion in arms to foreign nations. In 2003 alone, the Pentagon and State Department delivered $5.7 billion in weaponry to countries which can ill afford advanced weaponry??nations in the developing world saddled with debt and struggling with poverty.
In 2003, the United States transferred weaponry to 18 of the 25 countries involved in active conflicts. From Angola, Chad and Ethiopia, to Colombia, Pakistan and the Philippines, transfers through the two largest U.S. arms sales programs (Foreign Military Sales and Commercial Sales) to these conflict nations totaled nearly $1 billion in 2003, with the vast bulk of the dollar volume going to Israel ($845.6 million).
In order to gain support in this war on Iraq from surrounding UNDEMOCRATIC countries the US paid them off with weapons...many of these very countries were our enemies...many had army camps just for training to kill Americans but now we sell them arms and they are our friends?
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the run-up to the war the biggest increases in dollar terms went to countries that suddenly became U.S. allies in the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, including Jordan ($525 million ), Afghanistan ($191 million increase), Pakistan ($224 million increase) and Bahrain ($90 million increase). and how about the Philippines, where the United States had just been kicked out. we lost our military base there, or have you forgotten that?The number of countries receiving FMF assistance nearly doubled coming in at a requested $4.5 billion for 2006.
That is OUR TAX MONEY.
Oh but I can hear you now...so what we are selling arms everywhere...yee haaaw well first you would have to move yourself out of the center of the universe long enough to think about the people in the countries we are selling to...
U.S. arms transfers end up fueling conflict, arming human rights abusers, or falling into the hands of U.S. adversaries. As in the case of recent decisions to provide new F-16 fighter planes to Pakistan, while pledging comparable high-tech military hardware to its rival India, U.S. arms sometimes go to both sides in long brewing conflicts, ratcheting up tensions and giving both sides better firepower with which to kill each other. Where is the humanity there?Far from serving as a force for security and stability, U.S. weapons sales frequently serve to empower unstable, undemocratic regimes to the detriment of U.S. and global security.
The greatest danger emanating U.S. arms transfers and military aid programs is not in the numbers, but in the potential impacts on the image, credibility and security of the United States. Arming repressive regimes in all corners of the globe while simultaneously proclaiming a campaign for democracy and against tyranny undermines the credibility of the United States in international forums and makes it harder to hold other nations to high standards of conduct on human rights and other key issues.
Can you grasp this concept? Is it sinking in?
Arming undemocratic governments all too often helps to enhance their power, frequently fueling conflict or enabling human rights abuses in the process.
OK but then you really don't care about other countries as evidenced in your MEXICO comments so maybe you could care about our soldiers in all too many cases, U.S. arms and military technology can end up in the hands of U.S. adversaries, as happened in the 1980s in Iraq and Panama, as well as with the right-wing fundamentalist "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan, many of whom are now supporters of al-Qaeda. The very weapons used against US soldiers in Afghanistan were sold to Al Qaeda by the US.
The Bush Family has always made money selling arms as have ALL of Bush's "think tank" members. Cheney, rumsfield,wolfowitz etc..
one only has to look back historically to see how their methods have failed and to see just how much more dangerous the world is for us all thanks to the present administration. 1) Washington transferred weaponry to successive South Vietnamese dictatorships throughout the 1960s and 70s
U.S.-origin arms were stolen from Southern barracks and after the fall of Saigon in 1975, North Vietnamese troops took possession of huge weapons caches.
2) Massive military assistance that the U.S. provided to the dictatorship of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi in Iran was seized in the 1979 Islamic fundamentalist coup, giving the Ayatollah Khomeini control of a fleet of F-14 fighter planes and other high-tech weaponry.
3) The last seven times the United States has sent troops into conflict in substantial numbers: in Iraq (2003-present), Afghanistan (2001-present), former Yugoslavia (1998), Haiti (1994), Somalia (1992), Iraq (1990) and Panama (1989); they faced adversaries with weapons or military technology "Made in the USA
In the mean time contractors have Thrived Under Bush Policies: Contracts to the Pentagon??s top ten contractors jumped from $46 billion in 2001 to $80 billion in 2003, an increase of nearly 75%. Halliburton??s contracts jumped more than nine times their 2001 levels by 2003, from $400 million to $3.9 billion. Northrop Grumman??s contracts doubled, from $5.2 billion to $11.1 billion, over the same time frame; and the nation??s largest weapons contractor, Lockheed Martin, saw a 50% increase, from $14.7 billion to $21.9 billion.
Gee I wonder who the top stock holders are in these companies? If you care going to support this war creditably you will have to do better than coin phrases like FREEDOM absorbed thru the TV...and if anyone is aiding the terrorist it is YOU by supporting this administration as evidence above.
Open your eyes you are being played for a fool.
and have a nice day.
Cat
