Author Topic: What a wimpy president (Read 2070 times)

Eagler · « **Reply #60 on:** March 08, 2003, 12:54:33 AM »

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Originally posted by Toad
Hey, quit knocking Canada. They're pouring 1.1% of their GDP into defense spending which is more than Trinidad & Tobago.. oh, wait, it's not. Well, more than Paraguay anyway..... oh, wait, it's not. Still more than Madagascar at least...... oh, wait, it's not.

Hmmmm. Wait a minute........ OK, that's more than Mozambique by .1%!

So ease off, already. Give 'em a break. They're doing what they can with what they have, which according to CBC is:

they gotta pay for that high quality health care system they got up there somehow....

Ping · « **Reply #61 on:** March 08, 2003, 03:12:29 AM »

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Originally posted by SLO

I could visit ANY country in this world with a CANADIAN flag on my back and NOT worry about gettin shot.....

Don't visit the USA any time soon SLO:p

Toad · « **Reply #62 on:** March 08, 2003, 10:50:36 AM »

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Originally posted by SLO
I could visit ANY country in this world with a CANADIAN flag on my back and NOT worry about gettin shot.....can you say the same....I think not.

Yep, and I salute Canada for this.

They've managed to participate actions that earn the US the enmity of other nations without becoming the target that the US has become.

Masterful piece of statesmanship; showing their flag just enough so that we know they're "with" us but hiding it well enough that the troublemakers of the world apparently don't notice them.

It is an art.

Dowding · « **Reply #63 on:** March 08, 2003, 11:35:27 AM »

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You mean the same Tony Blair who is pulling out on supporting the US in Iraq due to opposition pressure in Parliament?

Funnily enough he's the Prime Minister of the UK, and answers to Parliament who have been elected by the POPULATION OF THE UK. He's not the poodle of the US and so is not obliged to follow Bush blindly to war. Fancy that!

Besides, he's actually trying to find a compromise, unlike Bush and his 'everyone and everything is irrelevant' approach to diplomacy.

I'm not a fan of Blair and never have been, BTW.

Yeager · « **Reply #64 on:** March 08, 2003, 11:37:01 AM »

Damn Toad. Whats your consulting fee?

>unlike Bush and his 'everyone and everything is irrelevant' approach to diplomacy.
====
Thats so damned typical. Its like this: You have a threat and your required to get all your neighbors permission to defend yourself and they say NO then you find out the threat is actually allied in some business dealings with your friends. Now you need to get at that threat before he slips some poisen into your food or messes with the brakes on your family sedan but your friends still say NO. Well....screw the friends I say. Screw you if required.

Toad · « **Reply #65 on:** March 08, 2003, 11:39:02 AM »

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Originally posted by Someone
Funnily enough he's the President of the US, and answers to Congress who have been elected by the POPULATION OF THE US. He's not the poodle of the UK and so is not obliged to follow Churchill blindly to war. Fancy that!

Besides, he's actually trying to find a compromise, unlike Churchill and his 'everyone and everything is irrelevant' approach to diplomacy.

I'm not a fan of Roosevelt and never have been, BTW.

Hmmmmmmmm... can we use this approach when the next "the US drug it's feet getting into WW2" post appears?

Rasker · « **Reply #66 on:** March 08, 2003, 11:43:38 AM »

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Originally posted by Turdboy
SLO I think you are right that they will strike back.

The problem is they will strike at us if we go to war or not.

I would rather go in and take SH out BEFORE he can build WMD that can reach us.

yeah thats actually the problem with the whole terrorist infrastructure. We are an open society, and can do only limited things to harden it against terrorism without becoming a police state. So we will need to be proactive against those who mean to strike against it, since they don't have a return address to which retaliation might be directed, and thus are not deterrable as was the USSR. This means going after them in their refuges when we can, hopefully with the cooperation of other governments.

Some say that Bin Laden's actual goal is destabilization of every secular government in Arab countries, and he may have been be hoping to use the United States' enraged response to 9/11 to help in this end. I am so far impressed that we seem to be doing well rolling up the Al Qaida hierarchy and destroying their Afghan sanctuary while minimizing collateral damage to people and nations. We of course don't want to create more terrorists than we kill or capture, but I dont see Saddam being someone that substantial numbers of Arabs will venerate as a martyr, seeing how many Arab countries lined up against him in 90-91, and how many fellow Arabs and Muslims he has personally ordered killed. Those who hate America after we rid Iraq of him would have hated us anyway, and more people, especially Iraqis, will love us for showing leadership and resolution.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a different matter, and the US may have to make a real effort to appear more even handed there, lest we be effectively portrayed to be financially supporting annexation and oppression of helpless Palestinians.

Dowding · « **Reply #67 on:** March 08, 2003, 05:28:44 PM »

There are so many holes in that version, Toad, I surprised 'someone' has 'something' to post. Even a cursory examination of the two situations shows there are no real similarities.

Those that say the 'Euros' were cowardly appeasers prior to WW2 are guilty of the same exploitative use of 20/20 hindsight as those that would say the US dragged their feet in entering the conflict.

The UK doesn't have any obligation to folllow the US anywhere. I'm surprised that anyone should find that fact disturbing.

sling322 · « **Reply #68 on:** March 08, 2003, 06:46:59 PM »

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Originally posted by Dowding

The UK doesn't have any obligation to folllow the US anywhere. I'm surprised that anyone should find that fact disturbing.

Then why do you feel that you have the obligation to stand in our way?

Toad · « **Reply #69 on:** March 08, 2003, 07:13:37 PM »

Oh, I can see lots of similarities.

GRUNHERZ · « **Reply #70 on:** March 08, 2003, 07:31:11 PM »

Now Bush is a whimp? I thought you euros saw him as some sort of atilla the hun/hitler/stalin type... What gives?

Dowding · « **Reply #71 on:** March 09, 2003, 05:05:39 AM »

OK, Toad, so Iraq has several hundred thousand heavily armed troops 40 miles from Washington, while the US forces have few heavy weapons or tanks? Are Iraqi planes bombing your cities while your heavily outnumbered air-force desperately tries to stop them? Or are you arguing that 9-11 was directly conceptualized, planned and implemented by the Iraqi government?

Any attack on Iraq is pre-emptive - your own government admits this. So how does that compare to a defensive war against Germany in 1940?

There are more glaring contradictions than similarities.

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Then why do you feel that you have the obligation to stand in our way?

There's no obligation to stand in your way. There's a right to disagree and a right to do as a sovereign nation must do.

Toad · « **Reply #72 on:** March 09, 2003, 08:19:56 AM »

Dictators? Yep, both dictators.

Genocide? Definitely both into Genocide?

Conquest? Yep. both "reclaiming lands that rightfully belong to their people... even though the lands don't want to rejoin".

Treaty violations? Absolutely, both heavily into treaty violations.

These should suffice.

Now, in BOTH cases, all responsible nations should recognize the danger and immediately jump into the conflict right? In fact it would be better to act pre-emptively much earlier, perhaps even at the very first treaty violation, and prevent a World War, right?

SirLoin · « **Reply #73 on:** March 23, 2003, 12:46:22 AM »

Eagler · « **Reply #74 on:** March 23, 2003, 12:51:20 AM »

you reopened a two week dead thread for that

can anyone say they, for better or worse, don't have their father in them .... don't think so...