The Name Is Appeasement ... (German Paper Article)

[AKH]

Originally posted by Toad
Well we are talking about military presence in Ireland in comparison with US military presence in Iraq. No starting or ending dates are specified for the comparison. I think you'll agree Britain has had troops in Ireland before 1969? Centuries before?

The two of us are stood at a bus stop, waiting to catch our respective buses.  I turn to you and say "I bet my bus arrives before your bus".

Busses run to timetables, yet sometimes you wait a lot longer for your bus than you expected.

[Toad]

Yeah, your bus was a prison bus and it was very slow to leave.

Ours is a Freedom bus and no matter how late it leaves it'll be a joyous day for all.

[AKH]

Originally posted by Toad
Yeah, your bus was a prison bus and it was very slow to leave.

So tell me, how far is your Native American Genocide bus on its journey?  At least we know what the fair will be - "one buck".

Ours is a Freedom bus and no matter how late it leaves it'll be a joyous day for all.

Doubly so for the Iraqis.  Yep, no doubt about that one.

[Toad]

At least we don't deny we oppressed the Native Americans and stole their land. Of course, that's all familar to you, as the English started that bus rolling here first too. We merely replaced the English in the driver's seat after 1776.

Yep, doubly so for us and the Iraqis. Nice that both the US soldiers and citizens have the same goals as the Iraqis.

Unlike some other situations we've discussed, eh? At least the Iraqis know we didn't come to institute Penal Laws that would prevent them from holding office, voting, exercising their religion, eductaing their children in their religion and so on.

[AKH]

Originally posted by Toad
At least we don't deny we oppressed the Native Americans and stole their land. Of course, that's all familar to you, as the English started that bus rolling here first too. We merely replaced the English in the driver's seat after 1776.

The British deny that we oppressed the Irish?  What an hilarious concept!  When are you going to give the Native Americans 5/6 of their lands back?

And who created "Pimp My Ride"?  Lets have some figures from you - Native American deaths at our hands as opposed to yours.

Yep, doubly so for us and the Iraqis. Nice that both the US soldiers and citizens have the same goals as the Iraqis.

Really?  Where did you get this "fact"?  Have you been on a recent field trip to the area? Do you have a source, or is it just a deep intuitive empathy that you have with the Iraqi people?

Unlike some other situations we've discussed, eh? At least the Iraqis know we didn't come to institute Penal Laws that would prevent them from holding office, voting, exercising their religion, eductaing their children in their religion and so on.

WTG on the score

[Skydancer]

Toad me thinks you might just be a little bit in danger of being a terrorist sympathiser. Call it a hunch but you got a bit of thing going about us terrible mean oppressive Brits, and the poor downtrodden Irish at the mo.

The poor downtrodden, terminaly divided backward looking murdering IRA, UDA, UDF whoever. Maybe you ought to let this one go before you realy offend someone!

[Toad]

Originally posted by AKH
The British deny that we oppressed the Irish?  What an hilarious concept!

[/b]

You must have missed the last thread on it.

 

When are you going to give the Native Americans 5/6 of their lands back?

[/b]

I expect there will be reparations before too awfully long. I doubt we'll ever give it all back though.

Lets have some figures from you - Native American deaths at our hands as opposed to yours.

[/b]

I've been through the numbers before on this board. Do a search.

The Native American tribes within the boundaries of what is now the US suffered far more deaths attributable to Europeans between the arrival of the Europeans and the establishment of the United States than can be attributed to US citizens since the establishment of the Republic.

Where did you get this "fact"?

[/b]

Well I'd say the American people and our soldiers can't wait to leave Iraq. I'd also say the Iraqi people feel the same. Seems like a shared goal to me. Do you disagree?

[Toad]

Methinks you don't read what I post. I have no sympathy for the IRA or any other terrorist group.

OTOH, I'm not blind to US history......... or British history.

Face facts; you guys pretty much wrote the book on worldwide imperial colonialism. Generally speaking you didn't treat your colonial subjects with much respect during that period.

Your "dismount" left a lot to be desired as well. Many of trouble spots in today's world are a result of your initial colonialization, less than "politically correct" rule and then your hasty retreat from empire.

I've said before, many times, that I admire Brits. I have a lot of friends native to your island and I've visited many times. I get my Labradors there too.

But most of my friends are quite unlike the few Brits that populate this board. Most of them are aware of their colonial heritage, the abuses of that period and the continuing problems that resulted.

Just like most of my US friends admit that we treated the Native Americans quite poorly.

[Squire]

Read the article. I have to say I agree with most of it. I think Europe and Britain (and Canada) have been too lax with muslim extremists, in terms of enforcement and immigration. Al Queda recruiters operate openly in most European cities, with no real fear of reprisals, thinly disguised as religious groups, protected by the democracies they obviously hate.

You can also debate the war in Iraq all you want, for or against, but that wont get rid of the problem of muslim extremist terrorists. They will be around after the Iraq business is over and done with. They still seek to come back to power in Afghanistan, and to destabilise our allies in the middle east and elsewhere.

...wether the U.S. was kind to the Indians in the 1800s, or not...

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by AKH
Lets have some figures from you - Native American deaths at our hands as opposed to yours.

I appreciate your interest in Native American history and issues.

The vast majority of deaths of Native Americans were not due to the policy of the United States, but due to European disease, as the majority of the population decline happened well before independence.
 
The Spanish brought slaves used on the sugar plantation of the West Indies and with them came smallpox.  In 1495, fifty to eighty percent of the native population of Santa Domingo and in 1515, two-thirds of Puerto Rico was wiped out by smallpox. Ten years after Cortez arrived in Mexico the native population had been reduced from twenty-five million to six million five hundred thousand.  The most conservative estimates place the deaths from smallpox above sixty-five percent.

Smallpox reached what was to become the United States either from Canada or the West Indies. The first major outbreak of an infectious disease recorded on the northeastern Atlantic coast was 1616-19. The Massachusetts and other Algonquin tribes in the area were reduced from an estimated thirty thousand to three hundred. When the Pilgrims landed a year later in 1620, there were few Indians left to greet them.

By the end of the sixteen hundreds smallpox had spread up and down the eastern seaboard and as far west as the Great Lakes. There were approximately one million two hundred thousand Indians living north of the Rio Grande in the early sixteenth-century, but by 1907, there were less than four hundred thousand.  In the journals of Lewis and Clark from the Mandan village to the headwaters of the Missouri, the Corp of Discovery saw only one native.

As for non-disease related deaths from Europeans, in response to an uprizing in 1622, a British colonist of Virginia said this:

"The proper response of the British against this 'viperous brood . . . of pagan infidels should be the same as that meted out by the Spanish: extermination." Sir Edward Waterhouse

1622 -- 150 years before independance.

[Squire]

The Spanish, French, British, American and Canadian response to the Natives was the same. We ignored them when they didnt bother us, we took what we wanted when it suited us, used them when it suited us (in our wars with each other), and when they opposed us militarily, we crushed them and put them on reserves. End of story.

[Momus--]

One thing at least that the article and the general reaction to it proves is that there are equally delusional people on both side of the pond. Now, why would the new-right want to promote the irrational proposition that a relatively small number of extremists constitute a threat to our way of life of the same order as nazism or communism?



Why? I wonder....

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by Momus--
...the irrational proposition that a relatively small number of extremists constitute a threat...

no threat at all

 

Oh, sorry, you said on par with nazis and commies...

(did you know that more Americans died on 9/11/2001 than on 12/7/1941?)

[Momus--]

Like I said, irrational.....

[Holden McGroin]

irrational: Marked by a lack of accord with reason or sound judgment:

"...the irrational proposition that a relatively small number of extremists constitute a threat... "

That a relatively small number of extremists have constituted a threat in the recent past is certainly a reason to suspect the possibility still exists, and therefore is totally rational.