It's 1938 all over again

I can't figure out what people are thinking if they don't find what you said more or less obvious.

Maybe it's more a matter of WHETHER they're thinking.

The only nit to pick is the choice of the derogatory "fascist," though it's pretty nearly exactly correct, it's still liable to cause people to reflexively leap to their defense as they would for almost anyone else being called a nasty name.

Yes, I know, "W" used it first. But he was probably expecting it to bait some Democrats into embarrassing themselves with the reflexive reaction, so it's an understandable political move for him. Hopefully, you're not doing that here.

most disgusting self serving manipulative pieces of crap I've ever had the misfortune to be on the recieving end of.

I'm too angry to post now.

People insist on comparing this to World War II, the rise of fascism in the 1930's is very different to what is happening now. For example the rise of fascism was a popular movement, in 1938 the NAZI party had 200,00 registered supporters in the US. Of course this dropped off to nothing when the war started (1939, not when the US entered the war in 1941-2). Al-Qaeda has never had 200,000 members let alone that number in the Al-Qaeda supporters of America (does this organisation even exist? I would think not).

My point is people insist on comparing this to other wars. I think it was a mistake to call it a war to begin with. If GWB had of called Al-Qaeda an "annoyance" they would not be getting the press they currently are, which is something working in their favour.

Was Vietnam like WWII, the answer is most assuredly NO. But the US insisted on fighting in the jungles of Indo-China in the same fashion as the fought on the fields of Europe. This is a lesson that seems to be forgotten by current US leadership (AU and UK as well, I'm not singling out the US nor am I attempting to make an anti-US statement).

So this "war" needs to be reduced to "not a war" in order to gain any ground. We must remove the credence given to Al-Qaeda?s "Jihad". A religious war is fought over meanings, if we can remove meaning from this war and make it look like a land/power/oil grab on the part of the Islamic fundamentalists. If this is accomplished the moderates might stand up and listen.

Instead we are working against ourselves in using outdated and clearly failed strategy, in demonising the enemy too much (making a mountain out of a molehill) and giving them too much publicity and in the lack of discipline in our troops.

let me dwell on discipline for a moment, we've all suffered from this, The UK soldiers admitting to war crimes, Gitmo for the US and the death of PTe Kovco (AU). The military machine is falling apart.

I don?t think there is a fundamental problem with our respective militaries, they are fine examples of [b]western[/b] militaries. What we are suffering from is a morale problem. Why? As a Japanese general from WWII said "the only food for morale is victory". We are losing by using old strategies and rigid thinking.

To achieve victory we need above all else what Sun Tzu called "the moral law" which states:
[i]"The Moral Law causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger."[/i]

We are not imbued with the moral law, but by the sounds of it Al-Qaeda is but in war things can change in a heart beat. What we need it to be imbued with "the moral law" in the Mid-East. In order to achieve this we would need to intimately understand the hopes and dreams of the people in the Mid-East. We need to win their hearts and minds. but to understand the Arabs we need to speak Arabic (I'm using this as a metaphor so please don?t answer it literally, I know we have Arabic translators).

The first step would be getting the US to butt out. No offence to any Americans but you have been demonised as the enemy. Iraq is a sticky situation but we need the COW to secede control to a multinational force, under control of the UN or some neutral organisation that is trusted by both Arabs and westerners thus achieving "the moral law".

The second step is to separate Iran from her allies, to defeat Iran without a war would be good, this means the US has to swallow their pride and become chums with Chavez, he's not a bad bloke and he's a hell of a lot better than the Iranian Prez (I'm not even going to try to spell his name as I will have Abs all over me like a rash). In international politics, its better to pick your enemies before to pick your friends.

On a side note, doesn?t the Iranian prez look like he's constantly spaced out, seeing alcohol and drugs are immoral over there I can only conclude that the Ayatollah keeps whacking him of the back of the head with a rolled up newspaper.

Edit: Imbued is spelt with an I

This is the crusades in reverse. the agressors, the Islamic extremists who warp the teachings of the Quran to their own ends, trick people into thinking it's a religious war, the same way the Pope did to get the European kings to go fight the Crusades. the Crusades was not a was over religion, the Jews and Christians and a safer and easier access to religious sites before the Crusades than any time since. It was a war for control of the Silk Trade Route, tthe Pope wanted those revenues and wanted to deny them to the Muslim leaders who were the current controllers of the trade.

Today the people pushing the Islamic extremists don't have any real power and they want power of large areas of the middle east. Those who practice terrorism should never be recognised or legitimised in any manner. Yet that is what the UN is trying to do. Once you recognise or give into any terrorist organisation, you are giving the rest a green light to do the same to achieve their aims of personal power to the organisations leaders.

NB: Terrorists attack NON-military targets as a first option and work to maximise civilian casualties. Fredom fighters attack military targets and work to minimise civilian casualties.

The best way to stop the Islamic extremists is to spend a few hundred billion dollars on developing energy sources that make the use of petroleum products next to worthless. And to withdraw all western intervention in the middle east political scene. Once the extremeists realise that they have no huge income sources to fight over, and give them the easy living that they want, many will go away. the majority of the extremist activity in the middle east has arisen since the value of the oil fields went so high, the leaders of thsoe organisation are interested in the money and power, not the religious aspects - they misuse and manipulate the religion for their own gains.

You were just a suitable place to hang the rant off...

I think that it's the particular targeting of US support that's getting the Muslims - terrorists [b]and[/b] the rest - so fired up. Al Qaeda (the real one) have a particular beef with the US concerning US troops in Saudi and that was a pretty legitimate reason to go after them. Hezbollah and Hamas are only concerned with Israel and their very legitimate claims against that country yet they are, to the US, lumped in with Al Qaeda. The Tamil Tigers - inventors and number one users of the suiclide bombing tactic - are ignored because they are not Muslim and Sri Lanka has no oil. North Korea is a nuclear rogue state but they're just a bit too strong to be slapped.

The justification of the sale of cluster munitions to Israel by the US cannot be made.

To be honest, the Hezbollah leaders "living it up" in Syria sounds like tabloid spin and I'd like creditable sources.

Again, we are back to spin. Please find out for me (actually, for you as I know the numbers) the numbers of Israelis killed by Hezbollah during the period covering the recent invasion and indicate how many of these were civilian and how many were serving troops.

Should Israel deal with Hezbollah? Of course they should! There won't be peace in Lebanon until they do! It would, however, mean Israel giving up land that they've occupied so I'm not holding my breath. Israel have now trashed the economy and infrastructure of Lebanon, killed anyone that they felt like and got the agreement of the UN to put an occupying force into south Lebanon to safeguard Israel's northern borders. If that's the UN working for the terrorists advantage then I'd hate to see what they do when they get pissed with them.

I don't really give a bugger about the crusades. It happened a thousand years ago.

I totally agree with your point 4. Other than a place to sound off as the "lone voice of reason", it ain't a lot of use. ;\

Neil :)

It might take 30 minutes.

My point was, instead of spewing a generalized objection, point out exactly what's objectionable, let us know what you see wrong with it, and provide a counter argument to that one objection. Then move on to the next. It's easy. I've done it scores of times.

To go off like you did without being specific reflects more negatively on your reaction rather than the article in question.

Oh for Pete's sake, Neil! If anyone is "running scared" it's you Europeans who are content to do nothing while these Islamo-Fascist are running amok all over the world.

We're not running scared, but rather facing a threat head-on.

Where do you come up with this crap, and what do you hope to achieve? Never mind, I know the answers. You pull it out of your ..... (being nice), and you hope to discredit you opponent's argument by minimizing it to silly rhetoric.

You are really grasping at desperate straws, here, Neil, when you have to spew such silly and untrue rhetoric. If you believe the USA wants to spread violence, you're sadly mistaken. No, I don't think you really believe that. But is this what your arguments have fallen to? I always thought you were one who could debate and discuss seriously and honestly? Am I mistaken? (Feel free to use the "sarcasm" excuse to get yourself out of this.)

Nope, I'll read your message no further if that's the best you can do.

You're wrong.

Retract or support.

Well first of all it insulted my intelligence.

"I remember the fear in my parent voices", age five , stated at age 74 ! What is wrong with this picture?

Then we have american evoking wwii from 38, where you waited long enough for us to beaten to our knees. When would you have galloped to our rescue, if pearl harbour hadn't happened and that extremist nutball Hitler hadn't declared war on you in response to your declaration against japan?

41 , 42, 43, never ?

Then we have a christian, the religion of peace and tolerance ,advocating war. A war he would n't be eligible to risk his life in, I might add!

And just to cap it all another member of this religion of peace loving right thinking honest upstanding people then tries to sell me the idea that we need to go to war to win the fight on terrorism.

When anyone with even a fragmentary understanding of history could tell you that will never ever work.

Disgusting filthy manipulative self serving lies !

What is wrong with Novak's piece?

Well, firstly his turgid style! "The atmosphere these days is marked by the same mists" is just pretentious bollocks, to use an old English saying. As for the irrelevant crap about his parents house...

I would bet long odds that the citizens of Pennsylvania in 1939 didn't give a flying f*ck about the goings-on in Europe so to suggest that a five-year old child would remember the day that Germany invaded Poland is ridiculous. Considering that war was declared the day AFTER the invasion shows that Novak doesn't have any idea of historic significance and can't even INVENT a plausible setting. "His eyes suggested much that was then unknown (..) He was only 28, and could imagine his own conscription." This was written by someone with the imagination of the worst type of romantic novelist. The whole set of scene-setting paragraphs is such obvious shallow fabrication that it doesn't give any confidence in the rest of the piece.

The "serious" content of the pice, Tony has dealt with far snappier than I can.

A couple of phrases, though:

"our enemies have declared Iraq to be the decisive battlefield. That makes it so." "And if we had to choose a single battlefield in the region at which to bait our enemies, Iraq is by far one of the two best."

Who [b]is[/b] this guy? What planet is he from?

"The enemies of the United States always underestimate the courage and determination of the people of the United States. Too bad. They pay a big price for that."

No one underestimates your courage and determination - just your ability to fight the right type of war in the right place has been a little suspect over the last fifty years.

Northern Ireland for instance, what pushed the IRA in to effectively legitimising Sinn Fein by bowing out?

Wasn't shoot to kill.
Certainly wasn't bloody sunday.
Wasn't imprisoning innocents who talked with a strangely irish accent.

Stopping the irish american lobby funding them helped.
Getting Eire on side helped
Surgical strikes helped
Nifty intelligence helped
Punishing their equally sick opposites in the nationalist para-militaries helped
Even american politicians brokering peace deals helped
It being a 'side show' in mainstream politics helped. Harsh but true that.

All those pressures tipped them into acts of greater and greater extremity against softer and softer targets. They were so wedded to their terror tactics, they actually tried to terrorise their own support base into helping them. An act of such collosal stupidity, it beggars belief.

The peace movements took hold, every one stronger than the next. Partisans for both sides recognised their commmonality of suffering and loss. They rejected the terrorists en masse.

They lost their hiding places, that left them with two choices join the system and gain something or die and get nowt.

It took years, lives and an iron will to stick to our own principles instead of lowering ourselves to their level (we weren't always successful at that bit !) , but in the end democracy won, not nationalism, republicanism, protestantism or catholicism, but pragmatism.

Every military campaign to impose british peace in ireland failed, every single one. They all created more enemies than they killed

Wasn't because we were crap at killing people, we did that very well, most of them weren't terrorists though, just ordinary people who had funny accents.

If you can't identify the enemy, you cannot force them into battle. Without a decisive battle you cannot win a war. If you can't win a war, don't fight a war.

Less Uncle Sam and little baby Jesus, more Sun Tzu.

That would help too.

I probably have very few memories of my childhood before the age of eight or so, but I certainly do have some. I can't really place an exact time-line on most of them, but I do have a quite vivid memory of an event that took place when I was about that age, and I can indeed pinpoint my exact age because it was a monumental event in our history -- the day President Kennedy was shot. I was quite young, but I remember my mother's exact words and feelings, exactly where I was standing, who I was with, who she was talking to, and so on; and I remember it just like it was yesterday.

I would imagine that the words from a parent describing the prospects of facing a war might also be permanently etched into a child's mind, especially when, for quite a number of years following, those words might have been repeated and reinforced year after year. He was told in 1938, reminded again in 39, 40, 41, 42, 43..... etc., including the news and pain of dealing with the death of a relative in that war. Yes, such memories could certainly be vivid today -- just like I vividly remember November 22, 1963. Will I still remember when I'm 74? Well, unless I experience some sort of dementia, you bet I will -- and so could he.

As far as your assertions and comments about the USA's entry into that war (Oh no! Not again!), nothing can be presented accurately unless presented in the context of that time. To judge events of 70 years ago based on today's reality is actually more dishonest than what you're accusing the writer of.

I suspect you just might choose to call him a liar because you don't care for his argument or opinion. You should really present your rebuttal rationally instead of emotionally. Once you start debating with your emotions, you're entire argument becomes quite easy to question and dismiss.

...you already owe me a steak supper!

You must have forgotten, many people in the USA in 1938 may have been first-generation immigrants from Europe. Are you suggesting that the people in Pennsylvania might not have had parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, not only in Poland, but in other European countries as well -- not to mention, some may have even been born there themselves? And are you really suggesting that none of them gave a "flying f***" about anybody?

Okay, Neil, I'll take you up on THAT wager as well. What are we gonna' wager this time?

From 1880 to 1930, about 28.5 million immigrants from Europe entered the United States. More than 1.5 million of them were from Poland. I wonder if any of them went to Pennsylvania?

Time Magazine cover story from 1939:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,761969,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19390424,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,883173,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19390327,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19390904,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,762520,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19390918,00.html

Search for more 1930s USA news publications. Those, too, will lend insight into the issues and sentiment of the day.

I think we can assume, however, that if people in the USA didn't care, such things wouldn't have been printed. I also think we can assume than many of those ~28 million Eurpoean immigrants "cared" about what was going on.

And you, Neil, are also judging actions and circumstances of 70 years ago, not only with the benefit of hindsight, but also based on today's political reality. And something else you overlook, Neil. While you somehow justify your criticism of the USA for its inaction in the late 1930s to respond to a word threat, you criticize the USA today for its action in a response to a world threat. We're damned if we do and damned if we don't, right? Or should we wait until we all have the benefit of hindsight before you criticize us for whatever it is we do or don't do?

You're a history buff, Neil. So tell us, at what point in time should the USA have entered WW I.I., how, why, who was in favor, who objected, and so on. And please keep your comments within the context of the 1930s world political reality.

But I know when we should have done it. We should have done it in 1934. We should have marched into Berlin and captured Adolph Hitler before he became too strong and powerful, and before he took-over the neighboring countries or killed anybody. Yes, I know, he wasn't a threat to anybody at that time, especially to the USA. And I know, nobody else was willing to do it; in fact, nobody else even thought it should be done. And the whole world would have criticized the USA for doing such a thing unilaterally. Perhaps Franklin Roosevelt would have even have been called an evil terrorist himself! But the USA should have done it anyway, right? (Just change a date, place, and person.)

Neil, the way I see it, you just lost another wager.

I am tired of hearing about Islamic any thing! I know there are great people who are of the religion. Who do not support all the problems that have been going on?
If an off shoot of your religion is killing people and not just people that do not support your religion, there is some thing wrong with the way you look at our religion.
The pope guy just read from an old book and just wanted people to think about it, it was not an insult to anyone.

I disagree with a lot of what people have said in this thread, especially much of what Tony has said. However, since WW2 the USA has been on a major expansionist route. Not physical expanionism, as you've explained, but political and economical expansionism - why take over the country if you can control its government or economy?

Following WW2 and the problems with the USSR, the USA govt set out on a clear policy of political expansionism as a way of mitigating the USSR expansionism. This involved sending military forces around the world, Korea and Vietnam being to two best known.

Since the 1950s the USA industrial giants have been using economic expansionism to increase their profits, often at the detriment of countries with weaker economies. Since the late 1980s the USA govt (Congress, Senate, and some presidents) have supported this economic expansionism. Cases like laws that protect a company's profits at the expense of private individuals, mostly USA citizens - the various digital media and copyright acts of the last decade are major examples. The USA government has supported this in international trade agreements. In the last few rounds of major trade agreements between the Australian and USA governments, the major sticking point had been the USA govt insistence that we alter our copyright laws (recognised by the international experts as the best in the world) to match the USA ones. Why, to protect USA corporate profits.

Often the USA government's help is dependent upon a country's willingness to give USA corporations the best advantages. This usually results in the economic growth in the country leaving it to line USA corporate pockets.

Happily, not all USA companies are like this, but there are enough to make it an issue to be concerned about. Australia has been very lucky, in that a country with a small a population as we have, has been able to exercise a lot of control over this process here, but it is becoming harder.

To a certain extent I agree with you comment to stop using USA TV etc, except the methods they use make that almost impossible. I don't know what it's like in other countries, but I do know that for many decades the purchase of broadcast rights for USA based TV shows has been sold in package deals. If you want to buy the rights to broadcast a top rating show, you have to buy the package that includes a dozen or more low rating shows. In order to get your investment back you need to broadcast the lower rating shows. I would live to see the worldwide TV networks refuse to buy any more USA products that are sold in that method. You'd see the USA networks have a hernia as one of their major revenue sources dries up.

The biggest problem with corporate USA is their arogance. Google are involved with court case over the use of the word Gmail, seems a European was using it as a trade name before them, for some eyars. Did they try to negotiate with him, no. They tried to plow him under. No one with half a brain could ever mistake Lindows for Windows, but that didn't stop Microsoft from trying to plow them under. The USA legal system is full of such stories. When the British airline Virgin came to Australia, there was already a company registered here called Virgin Airlines, did they try to plow them under, no - they tried to buy the name, but the owner asked an inordinate amount of money for it, semed he gone to the Bill Gates school of business training. So Virgin Airlines has an Australian based subsiduary called Virgin Blue.

Many Australian companies have to have a name change when they expand overseas, it's no problem for them to do so. Yet this is a big problem for corporate USA, and they usually try to browbeat or destroy anyone who ahd the impudence to use a name that they want, even when the non USA company ahd been using that name for centuries before hand.

I better stop before I write a full thesis on this. Have a nice day, and yes, people will sell out anything when faced with economic destruction.

What you are calling economic expansionism, most others call a global economy. To keep things in perspective, you should also include a similar outline of other nations' "economic expansion" into the United States. You could write an entire thesis on that as well!

You really shouldn't change the definition of words just to suit an argument.

Anyone out in TR-Land know at what point that Michael's father "came over" and from where? I Guess that we'll never know. Of one thing that I'm sure, though, is that had Novak Senior had any recent direct European links, we would have had them mentioned (laid on inches thick with a trowel) as part of the schmaltzy emotional background to this piece. Considering that I reckon Novak is a Polish name, I doubt if Michael would have missed the chance to further emotionally load the piece - if that were possible.

What other US citizens thought is not the issue in the piece but I would concede that those with Polish or German roots may have taken notice. Those interested and of English extraction would have done so the following day.

I've said in many other posts that the US entered the War at the right time. Any under-resourced and too-rapidly trained expeditionary force would have been wiped by the Wehrmacht which, before they tangled with Russia, was the best army on the planet. The political fall-out from that would have been devastating.

I also don't criticise the US now for "responding to a world threat". I criticise you for [b]where[/b] you are "responding" and [/b]how[/b]. I did it before you/we invaded and I still do so. I criticise us both for the apparrent lack of any plan in how to deal with terrorism.

I also criticise us both for being less than even-handed in our approach. This, by the way, is what ticks off the "normal" Muslims - and me! The media coverage is incredibly selective. The Saudi version of Islamic fundamentalism is never discussed despite the fact that, as a regime, they are total sh:ts and [b]anything[/b] would be preferable in terms of an alternative government. Are you aware that women are not allowed to drive in Saudi? In Saudi Arabia, women cannot work in offices together with men. Both are acceptable in Iran but, because Saudi has oil and has been an ally for seventy years, nothing is said.

I criticse us both for failing to recognise that we are the creators of Islamofascism. They used to be your friends! The US foreign policy in the fifties and onwards saw militant Islam as a counter to Middle East expansion by Russia. You - rightly - saw that region as the source of the energy for Europe and Japan and picked your allies in an attempt to control the area so that you could have Europe by the short and curlies. You picked Iran and Israel picked themselves. The 1979 Islamic revolution lost you most of the influence that you had in the area. When the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan the Pakistani Islamic fundamentalists, the Mujahideen, took on the "evil empire" armed by the US and others to the tune of $billions. American operatives recruited for the jihad in Afghanistan from all over the Muslim world because you saw it as an opportunity to mobilize the Muslim world against communism. Mujahideen were brought in from Algeria, Sudan, Egypt, Yemen, and Palestine and trained by the CIA and armed by the CIA.

I would argue that the notion of jihad as had not existed in the Muslim world since the tenth century until the United States revived it against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Militant fundamentalist Iran is mostly our fault - that's you and us. In 1979 hard-line anti-American Islamic clerics assumed control of the Iranian government when they ousted the Shah. Now, [b]he[/b] was a corrupt US puppet who tortured and killed tens of thousands of Iranians during his reign. The US and UK Security Services helped the Shah to take power from Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. [b]He[/b] was a democratically-elected secular prime minister who, unfortunately for him, chose to nationalise the oil industry. To be honest, the British oil companies were exploiting them hugely so he did have a point. So, by assisting in the overthrow of a populist leader to replace him with a tyrant, the US provided the incubator for powerful anti-American sentiment. Thus the US, with lots of help from Great Britain, is responsible for the theocracy in Iran which they fear and despise.

I will withdraw my earlier likening of the Demonisation of Islam by the US to the Demonisation of the Jews by the Nazis as I concede that there is not a [b]deliberate[/b] US government policy against Islam but the Demonisation of Islam is nonetheless happening. Since the ending of the Cold War, you've lost yourselves an enemy at every level. John F. Kennedy never got to put your country's position as "standing watch on the walls of world freedom" as he would have done in Dallas. Perhaps he would have been right to say that you had The Mission to do this and The Enemy to face down. After the ending of the Cold War, you've been denied both The Mission and The Enemy. The Mission seems to have become human rights. That's surely another thread! The declared Enemy is intended to be Terrorism but it is becoming Islam. But either way it's not a real enemy, it's a fabricated one.

Sorry, I'll stop now. The simple point that I'm trying to make is that that by naming this a "War", Michael Novak and others (you?) are simplifying what is a real danger. If you convince yourself that you have a simple problem then you believe that you can apply simple remedies. No! It's complicated and has a lot of history behind it and we need to fight what is a real enemy intelligently.

So far, we're making it worse. Much worse.

Neil

An would just like to clarify that you talk about the concept of "morals" not the concept of "the moral law"

Al-Qaeda?s "moral law" comes from the fact people are desperate and angry not from any religious authority.

Back in the good old days when we could get away with planting union jacks and claiming it was ours. One of the first things we did, was bring our culture.
Cricket for instance. It's not just a game, breaks are called tea, it's a game of gentleman (english definition). If someone does something 'underhanded' we describe it as 'hardly cricket'.

It is one of the games most played by our private schools, peopled generally by the wealthy elite.

It's a visible aspect of an enormous stack of foreign (to them) cultural values. There are still whole sections of indian society who are now more british than the british.

American business thinking is with it's flagships like MacDonalds is wholly foreign to european culture never mind an islamic one. It's american, yours.

Not saying it's anymore wrong than cricket, but it's a subtle and much more insidious invasion than simply shooting a few natives and stealing their valuables.

Your expansion is essentially capitalist as opposed to imperialist, in it's early years it was another way of combating the bogie man of communism. It exists and we see it, because it is foreign to us.

And yes we feel threatened by it !

We expanded militarily, not to go around shooting people, but to make ourselves richer stronger and safer. You use the american flavour of business capitalism for exactly the same purpose, don't you.

I'm not talking from my leftie point of view, britain's socialist model is the spearhead for our culture just as much, it's simply not big enough or effective enough to supplant the american model.

getting bigger.
In these terms covering a greater area. America's prime goal is to dominate the global ecomomy is it not. To get the biggest piece of the pie.
That's not an attack, we did the same for years until two world wars finished us.
Do you think all our colonies welcomed us with open arms because our system of values were obviously better?

Take your stetson off and look at it from some one elses perspective.

Using USA based examples.

Global economy is McDonalds and Pizza Hut selling franchises to Australians to set up businesses under their umbrellas here in Australia. It is Nike setting up a manufacturing plant in Vietnam, using local labour and paying much more than the local wage rates.

Economic expansionism is the USA government using its political and economic might in an effort to make other countries accept USA businesses that it doesn't want, or change laws to support USA businesses against its citizens. Such as the current USA government attempts at what they call Free Trade, a core part of the deal is that the non USA country MUST change their copyright laws to agree with the USA ones, thus giving USA businesses extra profits at the expense of the other country's citizens. Australia has been able to stand up to this so far, and our refusal to abide by these unfair laws has severely impacted trade negotiations with the USA for three years.

USA corporations like RIAA have bought enough members of the USA congree and senate to pass laws that a detrimental to generl citizens, and they are pressuring the USA govt to force those laws on other countries.

Another example is the matter of USA courts hearing cases against citizens of other countries for activities in other countries. they do that because they know that most countries have sane laws and won't support things like suing a company for selling you what you asked for. If I do something in Australia that is against USA laws, then the USA has no jurisdiction over me, but that isn't the way the USA courts and govt see it.

An example is the people in that military prison (damned if I can pronounce, let alone spell the name). They commited breaches of the Geneva convention in Afghanistan, they should have been handed over to the Afghanistan govt for legal action, or the International court for legal action. The USA had no valid jurisdiction to take them out of Afghanistan for legal action under USA law - the USA laws did not apply to the situation.

I don't mind global economics, I object to economic expansionism.

....what did we wager?

BTW: Can't get to Vegas until late November. Rats! It would've been a hoot.)

My local american football team the Scunthorpe Steelers.
Basketball and ice hockey are very big sports in the UK. We now have as many places to play ten pin bowls as we do crown green.

Course you do have soccer and cricket teams. I bet some where in the US they have conker championships as well.

It's not all one way and there's good bit of adaption as well. For instance I describe trick or treating as demanding money with menaces. When the kids come round they aren't expecting a sweet, they want cold hard cash.

They'll super glue your car doors closed if they don't get it as well. I always hope they'll get confused and suck on the tube instead of the lollipop I just gave them.

Hardly the american concept of the practice is it.

It's too easy to fall into black and white, good and evil, them or us type propositions with this stuff. We've all got to resist the temptation, it just makes things worse, as there can be no possibility of any sort compromise.

I still reckon that the majority of people in Pennsylvania did not mark September 1 1939 as any significant day. And certainly not to the extent that a father would instruct a five year old child that "this was the day the World changed". Retrospectively, perhaps.

Sad about Vegas. I had warned Mother to be on her best behaviour! I do intend to have a T-bone in your honour at Binions Steak House. I believe that the shrimp appetizer was also mentioned...

We have the route mapped out now. I've all but a couple of hotels booked and paid for.

Vegas and around for a week, taking in Death Valley, Hoover Dam and West Grand Canyon (!). On to Williams AZ for the Grand Canyon "proper". Kayenta AZ for Monument Valley via the Painted Desert (maybe). Moab UT for Arches National Park, Bryce UT for Bryce Canyon, Cedar City UT for Zion Park. Then a hack to Bishop CA and then on to Monterey CA. Down the Pacific Coast Highway to Santa Barbara. Three days at the seaside with a side trip to Hollywood. Back to Vegas via "somewhere as yet unknown". Back to work.

Don't think I've missed anything...

For the three weeks my philosophy is a very hypocritical "sod the environment" although I have limited myself to a 3.5 litre engine in the hire car.

He can't do it, Tony. Not by any Scriptural moral code: "Love thy neighbor as thyself; judge not, lest ye be judged; do unto others as you would have them do unto you..." Not many of us today can live up to that. But we try.

Many modern Christian moral codes, on the other hand espouse judgementalism, hypocrisy, hatred, condemnation, and other "family values." This group, for example, is only one of many who hate in the name of Christ: http://tinyurl.com/bikk

John J. "Black Jack" Pershing

This page (http://tinyurl.com/d83y) has more information on the incident you referred to.

[provocative remark]He's also the American general that won The Great War (WW I).[/provocative remark]

The prime minister served at the pleasure of the ruling Monarch. If the queen really had serious problems with Blair she could remove him in the same manner.

Mohammed Mossadegh was removed twice by the Shah.

He was a populist and advocated dispersing pubvlic funds to the general population (socialism).

The Shah may have been a tyrant, but he was our tyrant.

Do you want to go back to 1949 with Alaska and Hawaii becoming states? That happened by the vote of the people in those territories...

What about the Philippines? Oops they were given their independence. Gee! How about the 51st state of Kuwait. Oh that's right they aren't even a territory. How about Japan? Oops they have their freedom, How about Germany?

Tony, American expansionism ended in about 1868...
Once we spread "from Sea to shining Sea." we were happy. We bought Alaska for 6 Million dollars just because Russia needed hard currency at the time.

Well, Hawaii we got for a similar shrewd deal from the King...

Get it right. No rational Christian would deny someone else's humanity.

We do think some people are wrong...

and couldn't imagine being in it. I have wept over a few graves though. Given the piss poor tactics being promulgated at the moment a few wiser heads greyed or not would be very welcome.

I don't like warmongerers they are always volunteering someone else for the grave and the grief.

First of all, any laws that are favorable to US business in countries other than the USA are passed by those countries, not the USA. Are you suggesting that US laws apply to Australia and/or that the USA can pass Australian laws? I think not. Your comments also suggest that the people, business, or governments of those nations have no free will to decide for themselves what they want for themselves -- another misconception.

I won't deny that the USA has a lot of influence around the globe. But in the case of all the examples listed by Tony (which did, after all, start this tangent in the first place), it's the American way of free markets that's behind the influence, not any heavy-handed coercion or manipulation. And it does not fit the definition of expansionism, plain and simple.

Besides, you conveniently forgot to answer my question about your definition of "economic expansion" of other countries into the United States. The last I noticed, Toyota has a pretty huge market share of the American consumer, many products sold here are "made in China", and let's not even talk about oil. But it's all free markets driven by free will in a global economy. There's no national expansionism by anybody into the USA, Australia, England, or anyplace else possibly eluded to in Tony's comments.

I see your complaints (or observations) just like I see those made by many Americans about jobs being moved overseas or the influx of foreign made goods into the United States. They sure complain about it, but they do nothing to compete against it, and/or they still buy the products.

You suggested that the RIAA have bought members of the US Congress. Please provide support for that comment.

And I hate to tread on this subject (RIAA), but this is yet another example of people complaining about something (the music industry and such), but they keep buying their products anyway. And I'm astonished at how many people feel entitled to receive digital music for free, even though the owner and/or creator of that music has no intention of giving it away.

You said, "USA courts hearing cases against citizens of other countries for activities in other countries......"

Please give specific examples.

And how does this compare to the EU, for example, suing an American company, Microsoft, for example, in Europe?

Attacking your enemy's civilian support base has always been a part of war. It always will be. It can be an extremely effective tactic. Yes it's demeaning, dehumanising, brutal and callous, but that's what war is.

The idea that is an honourable contest between gentleman is one of the biggest lies ever perpetrated against humanity.

Terrorist or freedom fighter is not a choice of tactics it is a choice of sides.

I noticed how you carefully qualified your statement so you could exclude bombing enemy cities which just happen to have military targets in them. Sophistry, collateral damage is an acknowledgment that civilian casualties are an acceptable risk.

Civilian morale has always been a legitimate target.

I think that we'd have a hard job justifying the fire-bombing of Dresden or Tokyo if we wanted to occupy the moral high ground. As for the use of the A-bomb in Japan...

Would you apply the same sentiment to "war on poverty" mongers who are always volunteering someone else's money to win their war?

(Note: "war on poverty" could be replaced with any such transfer of wealth social program.)

He was right about what grew up out of the end of WW1. But wrong in his assessment that the British govt would have made peace with the Germans. Some people, including Churchill, wanted to and thought that they could, but by then, the general population would not have accepted anything but total unconditional surrender. That point was made by several historians and political analysts of the time.

WW2 grew directly out of the Versailles Treaty, as did many of the other adverse political changes. However, they would never have happened except for a few self serving USA Senators. President Wilson had the European nations all set to support a League of Nations with real balls, plenty of power. But when the bill to support a powerful league was defeated int he USA Senate, and they instructions to their official represntative at the international conference were for a powerless paper tiger, the League of Nations was doomed as a political policeman. Without that protection, France pushed for the severe terms of the Versailles Treaty as a way of holding Germany down. The rest is, as they say, history.

There were many things that could have been done better at that time, but a small group of self erving politicians in a number of countries, saw to it that they weren't. No one, then, could have predicted the rise of Hitler or WW2 - although a few did predict another war with Germany as retribution for the Versailles Treaty terms.

Edit Arrgh, I got to edit mea culpa. This max message things is a bummer. I had so many tabs open I got them mismatched. This post is in response to NeverBusted's post, higher up the chain in another sub-thread, about Churchill's comments on the aftermath of WW1. So folks, but I'm to lazy to retype it in the correct place.

Define the status of Hezbollah, taking into account [b]all[/b] of the last sixty years history between Israel and Lebanon. Do they change from freedom fighters to terrorists and back to freedom fighters?

Iraq is presently in the grip of a religious sectarian war. These have, down the ages, been particularly nasty affairs. In this case there [b]aren't[/b] any soldiers and there isn't any parallel with any other type of conflict.

"Way back when" is usually totally misrepresented as some form of chivalric ideal. The dominant force was quite often archers. Tactics had been considerably more refined than "swung swords" since the Romans and prisoners, unless aristocracy, weren't worth jack sh:t so were usually put to death with or without a bit of torture.

There are some relatively unknowns that make me somewhat sceptical of the real need for the A-bomb - [b]two[/b] A-bombs, by the way.

There was an enormous political imperative to finish the Japanes war before the russians joined in and thereby became part of the aftergame.

The only sticking point to Japanes surrender prior to the A-bomb was the status of the Emperor. This point still had to be conceded after the A-bomb.

Dwight Eisenhower didn't approve of it: "my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'."

Douglas McArthur's biographer. "When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."

It is difficult to find a serious military figure of that time who [b]did[/b] support the bombing,

Did we have a little "Shock and Awe" aimed at the Russians. I think so and, if it was truly so, you may draw your own conclusions.

Neil

because it's easier that way.

1. USA courts dealing with non USA citizens.

First, let's agree that when you do business in a country you have to operate under its laws for that business. Same when you visit a country, you come under its laws. Can we agree on that, I think so.

a. The EU dealt with MS via its european subsiduaries or agents about how MS conducted business in europe. No action atken about how they did business outside of the EU jurisdiction. MS could have refused to have anything to do with the proceedings, but then they would have had to close down all their european operations and cease trading there. MS chose to abide by the EU courts.

b. The people arrested in Afghanistan, held in Gutanamo Bay (I hope I got that spelt right) are being tried under USA military courts. They were not on USA soil when arrested, the USA courts have had a number of court cases about this. Nothing concerning these people should be happening in the USA. They should have been tried by the Afghanistan government uner the Afghanistan laws, that was where they were arrested. If the Afghanistan govt wanted to duck out from under on this, then the prisoners should have been handed to the International Courst for trial.

c. A few years back the USA govt started legal action under USA laws against a person in Europe, Russia I think it was, because he wrote and released a piece of code into Russian based Internet servers and this code maliciously propogated into the USA. None of the fellow's actions took place in the USA, but they still want to put him before USA courst to be dealt with under USA laws. I do NOT condone what he did, but he should be dealt with in Russia under Russian laws.

d. I recently saw a media report about someone in the USA suing, under USA law, a European based spam filtering company for loss of trade as the spam filtering company black listed them for spamming, and thus the USA mails are filtered out by the spam filter. Thus costing them potential sales. All the action taken by the respondent were done in Europe under European laws, and the USA people found that the european courts would not accept that they had a case to take to court. That didn't stop the USA people getting it before a USA court.

2. The Difference between economic expansionism and free market.

A free market is where the buyers and sellers have the right to make their choices with minimal government internvention. Such intervention should only be for safety and to prohibit criminal type trade.

Many comapnies trade around the world, and do so in an honest manner, placing their products on the market in fair trade against the other products available in that market. Toyota do so, as do McDonalds and Pizza Hut. They do so under the laws of the country in which they are trading, and make no effort to have the government change those laws to give them an unfair advantage over others.

When governments establish trade agreements, one of the outcomes is a market shared between the two countries. With a fair trade agreement, the companies from both countries have equal opportunity in the markets of both countries and operate on the same playing field within a country. Thus an agreement between Australia and the USA should result in Australian companies having the same USA market access, opportunities and support as USA based companies, and operate under USA laws.

Economic expansionism is where one government uses its political or economic muscle to pressure another country into giving the first country's businesses an unfair advantage in the shared market. One way of doing this is to pressure the country to change its laws to suit what the first country want.

A few years ago there were major difficulties with a set of trade agreements between Australia and the USA, some of the terms being insisted upon by the USA government included major changes to the Australian laws on copyright, to match the USA laws, despite the Australian laws being recognised as the best in the world. Another aspect was the USA wanted the Aust govt to remove all subsidies to Aust producers and to reduce tariff against USA products. Yet when the Aust govt wanted the USA to remove all USA producer subsidies, the USA govt objected. The trade agreement got stonewalled for sometime. During that time, various USA govt organisations went out of their way to find problems with Australian exports to the USA and interfere with trade as much as possible. It took some months for the USA govt to realise that we would not accept the USA terms as were. The final agreement, after many months of heated arguement, was to leave our laws alone, and that we would remove subsidies for all industries that the USA removed subsidies, ditto with the tariffs.

That did not stop the USA govt, trying to enforce the original terms on other coutnries in the next set of trade negotiations with them. Government trade negotiations should not be used to pressure countries to change their laws, or to give your companies an advantage over the locals. But the USA govt has been doing that for several years now.

BTW we have many jobs going offshore as well. Part of the general free market.

When the changes to the USA media copyright acts came in, there were many USA articles about how many politicians, in both houses and both parties, where being wooed by RIAA and how much RIAA was pouring into political coffers to get support for the changes. One article I read went so far as to say "The following congress and senate members have been bought by RIAA" and listed some.

I believe that performers should get paid for their work and support proper copyright laws. But once I have bought a legitimate copy of the material, I should be free to enjoy it in a manner that best suits me, and allows me to keep enjoying it for as long as I want. Under the laws here, I can buy a legal copy, make a recording, store the original and play the recording until it wears out, then make a new copy from the original. I bought the right to enjoy the material, and retain that right whilst I retain the legal copy.

BTW I've not bought a first release CD or DVD since this issue first raised its head in 1998/9. I wait until they come out as compilations or go on sale for $5 to $8 for a CD, $8 to $15 for a DVD. I don't accept pirate copies either, I don't believe in it.

they were blowing up schools, shopping centre and hijacking planes - thus terrorists. I don't know if, or what they did before that. In more recent times, they have sat in Lebanon indiscrimantly firing rockets at Israeli civilian targets, and bombing schools and shopping centres - terrorists.

I don't care waht the reason are, when someone goes about their own country blowing up shopping centres and schools, they're murderers or terrorists as far as I'm concerned - in both cases they should be dealt with as murderers. They are definitely not soldiers.

Back during the wars between France and England, the ground trops were often set free after a battle, usually after the archers had their two draw fingers cut off, and soldiers had a leg broken and misset. This was to make them unsuitable for future military campaigns. Few liked indiscriminate killing, it only invited retaliation in kind.

Regarding the A-bomb. Many of the USA senior military commanders had no grasp of the true political realities of Japan. The Emporer did NOT have control of Japan in the 1930s or 1940s, he was a figurehead and had been for some time. The Japanese military who did control the country, would NOT have surrendered so readily as Eisenhower or McCarthur imagine, they falsely assumed that the Japanese would be guided by the same military realities as they were.

Japanese records, and interviews, from the period show that the emporer did not want to go to war at all, and he wanted to surrender before Iwo Jima fell. The controlling military did not, when the first a-bomb was dropped, the emporer pushed for surrender, the generals did not. The emporer did all he could to convince the generals to surrender, he had them almost in agreement, when the deadline for the second bomb's dropping was reached. he was already in the process of getting the surrender message to the USA when the second bomb was dropped, that was why the surrender was so quick after the second bomb.

The use of the bomb was more a political decison than a military decison. After all, the senior military commanders had already proven that they had no intention of using any new hardware until AFTER it had been well tested. Many were against the use of tanks as general warfare vehicles until after germany showed they they should be used, widespread use of aircraft in naval campaigns was fought against in many areas until after the Japanese proved their effectiveness at Pearl Harbour and the HMS Prince of Wales. The use of large scale parachute drops was seen as a waste until after Germany proved their effectiveness. Senior military commanders like to go with what they know, and most aren't interested in trying anything new.

What is know, is that the planners who did the Japanes islands invasion plans, estimated millions of Japanese dead and hundreds of thousands of allied dead. The A-bomb, meant there was no repeat of D-day, and its loses. Was it the right decision, that is unknowable as we don't know for sure what would have happened. However, an evaluation of the Japanes culture done by a military analyst, an expert on the Japanese, a few decades earlier, said "Any invasion of the Japanese Islands would have to result in the loss of large numbers of troops and the majority of the Japanese civilians as they would rise up in defence of their country, their culture would not survive such terrible loses."