american diplomacy is absolutely ridiculous...im pretty much at a loss for words as to the sequence of events of the post war accusations...worst of all...the fighting still continues...
if you're gonna do something, do it right...stick by your educated conclusions...follow through with your actions and make sure it gets done correctly...amidst all debate...you can still come out knowing you did everything you thought was the right thing to do at that moment...and now...
Iraqi inmate: 'Treated like dogs' | ||
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its truly embarrassing.
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http://www.students.haverford.edu/hchoi/final%20project.htm
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professional athletes and their migraines...
after my millionth refresh of espn.com...im reading on how artest might not play tonights game because of a MIGRAINE!...COME ON...these are professional athletes getting paid millions of dollars to SIT ON THE BENCH DURING THE PLAYOFFS BECAUSE OF A HEADACHE??..that is just such bullshit~....goodness....i would argue that he's probably hungover from the night before and trying to play hooky off work...but he PLAYS BASKETBALL FOR A LIVING!....then...its the playoffs!..have some drive and determination..and some DRIVE TO WIN A TITLE!!...stop being a wussy!....
the arguement can be said that i know nothing of random occurring migraines...i've never jsut woken up with a headache...although...i've had some severe migraines due a few concussions...mild and medium concussions wehre my head has been ringing for days..nausea, vomitting and dizzyness ensued....but there was a cause to the effect of the migraine...in artests case...NOTHING>>NADA>...unofficial reports claim the majority of nba players puff the dragon....and maybe artest needs to just get a double dose of it tonight before the game....
ugh...franchise pulled the same shit on me 2 years ago...or was it 3 years ago...
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[EDIt]]
response to dixstar:
a couple of things...and i think you might have been misinformed...
first:
war can be boiled down to 2 things...land and money...revenge is never enough of a motivator especially when riling up the masses if there is no bottom line financial/territorial gain...
even the fight for land is an outdated rationale for war...with the UN and global diplomacy to balance superpowers and essentially nuclear outbreak...and also the increased technology to not need land to dominate (ie japan)...money is actually the biggest/only reason for any country to go to war....
noteable exception: the need for a palestinian state (so hard to fuck up something once you've messed up from the get go)
iraq/kuwait and saudi arabia account for half of the world's proven oil reserves (incorrect: media sources claim the middle east holds 2/3rds of the world oil, incorrect: kuwait is the number 2 oil nation...not iraq --i am clumping all 3 of these oil giants together just to be a bit more general in an effort to be more accurate...)...in anycase...the US interest in the middle east is truly beneficial....as expensive as gas has gotten lately...its still the cheapest in the world....some facts for you
Five companies dominate the world oil market. Four are based in the US and Britain: Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch-Shell (often described as a British-Dutch company), British Petroleum-Amoco, and Chevron-Texaco. (The fifth, TotalFinaElf, is sometimes described as a French-Italian company.) The US and Britain see regaining control over the Iraqi market, which they lost when the Iraqi government nationalized its oil industry in 1972, as key to maintaining their dominance over this critical economic resource.
The Bush administration has close ties to the oil industry: both President Bush and Vice President Cheney worked in the oil business. Forty-one senior Bush administration officials were former oil companies executives or have substantial stock holdings or other financial ties to the industry. Washington's predatory interest in Iraqi oil is clear, whatever its political protestations about its motives for war.
The US National Energy Policy Report of 2001 - known as the 'Cheney Report' after its author Vice President Dick Cheney, formerly one of America's richest and most powerful oil industry magnates - demanded a priority on easing US access to Persian Gulf supplies.
its a scramble to carve up iraq's oil territory and to use the takeover of hussein as 1. a scapegoat for 9/11 and 2. to take over democracy-theatening nations.
War in Iraq will certainly affect the oil industry in various waysrices, levels of production, and balance of power among both oil companies and oil-producing countries. Iraq vast oil potential means wide ripple effects of any shakeup there. But exactly how the ripples flow depends on the length and veracity of the war and the level of on-going instability in Iraq and the wider Middle East.
**all italicized are taken from another source...its xanga..no need to footnote =)**
my feelings on torture and US course of action is EMBARRASING - my comment on idjiots page:
the concept of imperial america invading iraq has never had a clarified rationale...and even after condoleeza rice and homeland security testimonies last month its reasonings are still debatable
if you're going to invade a country...without the backing of the UN...(thats an issue within itself)...and you give no clear cut reason other than then the direct need as a country to use someone as a martyr for 9/11...then you MUST go about your business delicately and most politically correct...the eventual bureaucratic backlashes are HUGE...and ironically huge financially as well...for some reason...recently...i see our time as the begin of america's "downhill fall" as one of the world's dominant powers...
a part of me accepts your point of view...but because i can accpet it as fueled nationalistic pride...i also know that its ridiculous...and in no way can that train of thought be nurtured.
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as i get older...any national political agenda brought up...i am having more and more opinions about...hence the passing of the torch...our generation is taking over...although with the medicinal advances to prolong life...the baby-boom generation is and will not be able to pass over the torch for years to come....a whole other issue in itself...this will hugely affect the next 20 elections....but i will not get into that...
so i overheard 2 co-workers chatting up a storm in their respective latrine stalls...due to the nature of a urinal visit i was not able to stay for the entire session of their discussion....pat tillman...."joe dimmagio etc etc etc (goes onto name 3 other names)...served for his country...but now this is one guy going into action getting killed and they are making such a big deal over it"...
its natural for one death to shake up any situation...and create a loud fuss...other than that....
times today are different...military service for your country and blatant patriotism is no longer what it was...with increased education and technology, war is no longer an efficient choice to resolve anything...homeland security protects against terrorists...and the need for global security only balances previous decades of nuclear buildup....with the world the way it is today, students, the youth of america has their own agenda...the youth of the world has their own agenda....they have invidiual and capitalistic goals that no longer involve uncle sam.
14 comments:
jas had a doc's appointment. now back at work... wut else can i possibly be doing? u bored?
yea, the whole thing is embarrasing
Frankly, I feel rather good about this whole situation in that Americans are willing to give up the whole "PC" point of view regarding treatment of prisoners. "Dude, you're a PRISONER. You tried to shoot me in the head and/or detesticulate me. Sorry for not giving you your damn filet mignon."
This is a war here. We, Americans, have extended ourselves to a fight we did not (probably should not) have gotten ourselves into. Now we're telling all our pissed off, tired, overworked soldiers that they can't have a little fun with their silly-ass Iraqi prisoners? It's either that or go gay-bashing on their gay war buddies.
I choose: torture the iraqis. Damn, I know a lot about politics. Who really knows what the right thing to do is anyway?
No eprops for you on this post...Niice.
that's a really cool study. they should also do a study on the probability of landing on a page where the person TyPeS WiTh tHe SpoRaDic ShIfT kEY.
the war is pretty pointless...
historically war is fought for three things: spoils, territory and revenge. while a case can be made for all three for the war in iraq, none of them are really solid. there's not benefits to oil prices as they've found that iraq actually has to import oil and its own reserves are depleted. we're not gaining any territory and even "ideological territory" who the fuck gives a damn? it doesn't benefit us in any way. and as far as revenge goes, osama bin laden is still out there shooting ak's and whatever and the capture of saddam hasn't done anything to improve that endeavor.
typically, i think torture in war is necessary to get information etc. but in this case, it looks like they're just doing it for fun? thats really fucked up.
been doing...
i will email u.
Derpderp writes the following...in case you guys missed it:
truly ignorant comments...an american pompous-small minded perspective on diplomacy the concept of imperial america invading iraq has never had a clarified rationale...and even after condoleeza rice and homeland security testimonies last month its reasonings are still debatableif you're going to invade a country...without the backing of the UN...(thats an issue within itself)...and you give no clear cut reason other than then the direct need as a country to use someone as a martyr for 9/11...then you MUST go about your business delicately and most politically correct...the eventual bureaucratic backlashes are HUGE...and ironically huge financially as well...for some reason...recently...i see our time as the begin of america's "downhill fall" as one of the world's dominant powers...a part of me accepts your point of view...but because i can accpet it as fueled nationalistic pride...i also know that its ridiculous...and in no way can that train of thought be nurtured.
My response:
Stop reaching back for all those damn reasons previously. That was like...two years ago. We invaded. We're there and we're trying to rebuild. I don't know enough about Iraq or the economics there to say what would happen if we pulled out...immediately.
All I know is our soldiers are out there, dying. If it is their last wish to torture a few Iraqi's, so be it. They just need to learn to be more discreet about it.
That's what China does. China tortures people all the time and derpderp, if you went to China, they would torture the crap out of you too.
Except no one here would hear about it...and it'd be fine. I'd be sad, though.
Hmm if it was anotherr player bitching bout migraines and decided to sit down, i'd def call him a pussy...But I think artest is a really committed player so these migraines must be Kill-Ah dood...
i know those were the intentions for going into the war, which was why i was pro war in the onset, not for any patriotic reasons, just because i thought it would put the us in a better foothold in the global energy arena. i think the benefits to the us seemed pretty substantial at the onset, but i think the reason why this war is so unpopular now is becuase there has been no spoils, no territory nor has there been any real vengeance exacted from it.
i'm looking at war as like three kingdoms war, not like cold war war. the propoganda behind this war is ideology, not personal gain which is what drives the populous to support a war. it would be a very different reelection situation for g. dubs if he had popular support for the war and gas prices were dropping.
he got mad at me because i got mad at him... but hes good now... he was grading stuff for me cuz i had to study...
amateur videos should be entertaining... HMMM! =)
holy crap. you type a lot.
1. ron artest - he's the man. don't doubt him.
2. pat tillman - he's also the man but is his signature worth $600? No. I applaud him for putting his millionaire ass on the line when others (such as I) are only able to sit back and whine about their daily lives.
3. i question whether or not our participation in anything is relevant/significant. do you really think that reading about the war and making comments about it on your xanga is going to make a difference? i don't think we need to debate why we're fighting this war as long as we know we're in it, we're fighting, and people are dying. i'm all for american interests but it doesn't seem to me that there is much to gain from continuing to be in iraq except that if we left and iraq were to collapse, i would have to pay $3.50 per gallon instead of the already outrageous $2.50 over here. Gawddamn.
I would bike to work if that would end the war. Sign me up.
i dont agree with your last paragraph .. but then ... im still crying over the weakening of political parties in america. ANYWAYS ... im a pacer fan and i also cant believe artest is contemplating sitting out IN THE PLAYOFFS!!!!!
my baseball players are like that ... damn these million dollar earning babies
real quick on victor's comment on iraq's oil supply.. iraq actually has 112 billion barrells of proven oil reserves and 200-300 billion barrells of potential oil reserves. that makes it second in the world as to the amount of oil they have and will have, behind saudi arabia. just a fun fact to know. so... no, their supply is far from depleted...
while i do believe iraq has some vast petroleum reserves, something like 115 billion, actually getting them out of the ground costs some beau coup bux, compared to other places that do actually have oil refinement infrastructure. it is an investment opportunity perhaps in the future for us, but it still doesn't make the war a popular one.
i know i did hear from somdwhere that the level of oil production in iraq was not where the us had originally assessed it to be after the liberation effort began. maybe it was an overstatement to say they were depleted.
the point is, historically, wars are fought for certain reasons, all of these reasons seemed feasible at the onset of the war, but now they seem even less and less coalesced. while you might see an opportunity for america, americans don't necessarily share your foresight, especially in an election year where in the short run of the time since the war has began, there has been no remarkably positive differences in american life as a result of the war. i don't think we feel more powerful, well fed or safe today than we did 2 years ago.
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