Alan Connor wrote:

On Sat, 19 Jun 2004 06:00:13 -0700, The Independent wrote:




Alan Connor wrote:

On Sat, 19 Jun 2004 07:06:16 GMT, Gunner wrote:



snip

Welcome back, Gunner.

I had no doubt at all.

Nor do I see any need to coddle a tough son-of-a-bitch like you:


That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's
cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays
there.
- George Orwell

No. Rifles are the symbol of brutal conquest, which is just a fancy
term for armed robbery on a large scale.

Ballot boxes are the symbol of democracy.

There are a WHOLE lot of people with a LOT of weapons that
don't have any democracy...Not a ballot box in sight.

Duh.

:-)

Does America's violence around the world create democracy? Try
this little quizz:

It consists of one (1) multiple-choice question. Here's a list of the
countries that the U.S. has bombed since the end of World War II,
compiled by historian William Blum:

1. China 1945-46
2. Korea and China 1950-53
3. Guatemala 1954
4. Indonesia 1958
5. Cuba 1959-1961
6. Guatemala 1960
7. Congo 1964
8. Peru 1965
9. Laos 1964-73
10. Vietnam 1961-73
11. Cambodia 1969-70
12. Guatemala 1967-69
13. Grenada 1983
14. Lebanon 1983, 1984
15. Libya 1986
16. El Salvador 1980s
17. Nicaragua 1980s
18. Iran 1987
19. Panama 1989
20. Iraq 1991-2003
21. Kuwait 1991
22. Somalia 1993
23. Bosnia 1994, 1995
24. Sudan 1998
25. Afghanistan 1998, 2001-2004
26. Yugoslavia 1999
27. Iraq 2002-2004

Q: In how many of these instances did a democratic government,
respectful of human rights, occur as a direct result?

Choose one of the following:

(a) 0
(b) zero
(c) none
(d) not a one
(e) a whole number between -1 and +1
(f) zip
(g) squat
(h) nada

(i) who cares?

AC

The object is to stomp them so hard the first time that they wont want
to mess with us again.

Fear is the best motivate, ask a Zebra running from a lion.

Better yet, visit Israel, where they follow your strategy assidiously.

Wonderful place: Frightened and angry youths with automatic weapons on every
corner and not a safe place in the entire country.

They also have a military that is immensely superior to that posessed
by their enemies and have killed at least 10 of them for every Israeli
casualty.

Yet they have no peace and no security.

You can talk to zebras if you want. I prefer to observe human behavior
and its results and draw my conclusions from those observations.

AC

The problem is the Israelis haven't got over their own trauma of the
holocaust. If they would just slaughter 20 million or so rag heads they
wouldn't have any problems.

And if you think the world is going to say any thing, think again.
Where was the world when Lenin slaughtered the 10 million or so in
Russia?
Where was the world when Stalin slaughtered 22 million or so in Russia?
Where was the world when the turks slaughtered 6 million Armenians?
Where was the world when Mao, slaughtered 80 to 90 million in China?
*As many as 20,000 to as high as 50,000 are still being killed annually
in communist China today.
Where was the world when Ho Chi Minh took over S.E. Asia in 1954 and
killed another 2 million or so?
Where was the world when Castro slaughtered 500,000 out of population of
6 million in Cuba? (and its still going on today)
Where was the world when Daniel and Umberto Ortega slaughter 250,000 in
Nicaragua? (Until Ronald Reagons contras drove them from power and they
had to settle for a democratic election which they couldn't rig and
Violetta Chamoro won hands down.
Where was the world when Pol Pot Slaughtered 2 million in Cambodia?
Where was the world when Idi Amin Slaughtered 1/3 million in Uganda?
Where was the world when for the 50 years of rape, cannibalism, and
slaughter in the congo that may have killed as many as 15 million?
(500,000 were killed between 1998 and 2002 alone)
Where was the world when the Huttus slaughtered 2 million Tutsies in
Rwanda?
Where was the world when Robert Mugabe killed 2 million in Zimbaube and
is sill killing 20,000 to 30,000 a year?
Where was the world when the Islamic Indonesians were Slaughtering a
million Christians in East Timor?
Where is the world when the Islamic Sudanese have slaughtered 2 million
Christians and enslaved (yes there is modern slavery) in the Sudan?
The we have the slaughter of innocent civilians in Lebanon, Bosnia,
Chechnia.

Hate to break it to you Alan but 99.5% of the slaughter of innocent
Civilians in the world since 1900, has had nothing to do with the
United States.

The Independent of Clackamas County, Oregon

"The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of
speeches and majority decisions ... but by iron and blood."

(Otto Von Bismarck, Speech, Sept. 30, 1862.)