America acting Un American?

[Osborn F Enready]

Well, I have read several of peoples posts that seem to think our country was always a saint, and always acted in the highest moral caliber, in our climb to independence, and our protection of our country.

I want to post this link, because I think many of you in here (though I do NOT know this) are younger, and not quite as informed as many others.

What do you think mass public reaction would be to this tactic today?

http://www.strangecosmos.com/view.adp?picture_id=11182


That link talks about Pershing. Just curious how many people have ever read about this, before basing their arguments on our "never sink to the level of terrorists" arguments??

Please feel free to comment, and understand that I NEITHER advocate or discourage the ideas conveyed in this link, just looking for a general concensus.

[VXerick]

I'm not sure this is true. But regardless, I've heard the same sentiments on many message boards. Maybe the suicide bombers wouldn't be so suicidal, if they got drenched with pig's blood and knew they'd miss out on those 72 virgins.

But the real issue is that there are knights and knaves in every kingdom. Not all people act accordingly with proper manners and morals in any particular society.

To expect nearly 300 million people to all behave according to your idea of fairness, is expecting the impossible. And the more diversity we have, the more diverse the opinions and action will be.

We can demand laws that will provide safeguards. But after awhile, those laws become the noose that kills the will of the people. Then we not only still have knights and knaves, we also have far too many serfs.

[Gorgo]

That's rich. The Phillipines had weapons of mass destruction so the U.S. had to go and kill hundreds of thousands of them.

[Loknar]

Compared to others we are saints. Look a t the past 200 years, the europeans are the savages not us. In the Philipines we were fighting a guerilla war with the tactics proper to do so.


and for you people who hate your own country, just remember, imperialism brought us to where we are today. conquest has been done since the beginnings of man, why are we held to such a high standard? The Athenians wernt...

[leo]

"But Johnny did it, why can't I too?"

[RightThinker]

Of course we have done some vile things to get to where we our today. Sometimes the ends justifies the means. Then again sometimes it doesn't. I think as long as we refrain from these tactics whenever possible and we do less and less corrupt things over the years we are doing fine. We are not saints. Relativly we ma be the closest things to sainthood though.

[Milton Bradley]

I think that this is one of the few things that have ever been recognized by our enemiy as a working solution, therefore, it is needed again, in my opinion.

[PatrickHenry]

Originally posted by RightThinker, Of course we have done some vile things to get to where we our today. Sometimes the ends justifies the means.

Man, are you cynical. Ends and means are a moral equivalent. How can justice result from injustice?

The Bush administration was determined to sieze Iraq and cynically searched for the means to achieve that goal. The end, US soveriegnty over Iraq, and in fact the entire middle east, was defined by the PNAC manifesto of 1998. The constitution does not allow for this type of hubris. That is a result of the takeover of our government by the forces of globalization.

Another of the boogers Bush has smeared on the honorable face of America is the Valerie Plame affair. "Dare to expose presidential lies? We will ruin your wife! Is she helping protect America from terrorists? Well not anymore, because we don't like what you said!"

Read an excerpt from Joseph Wilson's book:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/050404B.shtml

Whether the motivation behind the leak was to discredit me or to discourage intelligence officials from coming forward, or both, is immaterial at this stage. What matters is that, as of this writing, the senior administration officials who took it upon themselves to protect a political agenda by exposing a national security asset are still in place. They still occupy positions of trust; they continue to hold full national security clearances. The breach of trust between the administration and its clandestine service will not be healed until they are exposed and appropriately punished.

[tusaki]

Originally posted by RightThinker, Relativly we ma be the closest things to sainthood though.

hahaha...

[tusaki]

Originally posted by PatrickHenry, Man, are you cynical. Ends and means are a moral equivalent. How can justice result from injustice?

Because in reality you can't achieve all goals in the 'just' way you would wish. We all live in one big prisoners dilema. Which doesn't mean we shouldn't strife to become just. But I'm not shocked nor do I find it abhorring to hear we don't act like saints. And you are right that acting this way usually gets us into problems in the end. But as long as short term goals are easier to achieve in a 'bad' way and long term negative effects are uncertain at best, people and governments will sometimes be blinded by it and act in a less plausible way.

[Osborn F Enready]

I am glad this is causing a little debate.

Interesting opinions being bounced around.

[damnrad]

Originally posted by Loknar, Compared to others we are saints. Look a t the past 200 years, the europeans are the savages not us. In the Philipines we were fighting a guerilla war with the tactics proper to do so. and for you people who hate your own country, just remember, imperialism brought us to where we are today. conquest has been done since the beginnings of man, why are we held to such a high standard? The Athenians wernt...

And what were we doing fighting a guerilla war in the Philippines, against Filipinos? Our ostensible enemy was Spain, although we had no real reason to go to war with Spain, but we ended fighting a guerilla war against guerillas that had fought for their independence against Spain -- and then found it necessary to fight for the same reasons against the U.S.

And those tactics were attrocities, not 'proper' in any war, for any reason -- but they were used by U.S. forces who did not even have a 'reason' to be in that fight. U.S. troops later committed attrocities in Vietnam -- another war in which U.S. troops should not have been committed. Now U.S. troops have been committing them in Iraq -- one of the latest wars in which such troops should not have been committed.

Hiding behind the attrocities of others doesn't make us saints -- but preaching about America the good guy does make us hypocrites.

[Catch 22]

Well no shit the US isn't a saint. The us has one of the longest records of aggression and atrocity in the last 50 years. Hell we killed something like 3 million people in a matter of years with the bombings of Cambodia and Laos. Even more surprising was that most of it (especially Laos) never came into the public awareness. Now if we can commit mass murder on this scale with little public awareness don't you think the Us has got other huge skeletons in it's closet? You don't get good at concealing killing of this magnitude unless you've had practice.

[Comrade]

I really dislike statements like, "How can justice result from injustice?" Its worthless semantics.

[Sophist]

This is a much propagated myth.

from the following link:

"according to Dr. Frank E. Vandiver, professor of history at Texas A&M University and author of "Black Jack: The Life and Times of John J. Pershing," the above tale is apocryphal. "This story is hard to stop!" he wrote in answer to an email query. "I never found any indication that it was true in extensive research on his Moro experiences. This kind of thing would have run completely against his character."

Further, comprehensive proof of its falsehood can be found at Urban Legends

sadly, governments have considered measures in this vein though. Blood on Buses

Oh.. and I think this is my first post. so hello everyone.

[Osborn F Enready]

Well, now that the Abu Ghraib scandal has broken, does anyone have a different opinion on this original topic post?

Flier from senator angers Muslims
By Yvonne Abraham

06/27/03: (Boston Globe) Senator Guy W. Glodis has angered Muslims and a civil rights group over a flier he sent to fellow senators that says terrorist attacks could be deterred if convicted Muslim extremists were buried with pig entrails.

The flier, which Glodis's 39 colleagues received Wednesday, said an execution of Muslim extremists in the Philippines was ordered by General John Joseph ''Black Jack'' Pershing before World War I, in which the terrorists were shot with bullets dipped in pigs' blood, then buried with ''pigs' blood, entrails, etc.'' According to the flier, contact with the blood and entrails of pigs ''instantly barred'' Muslims from paradise, dooming them to hell. It said news of the burial deterred other terrorist attacks for ''the next forty-two years.''

''Maybe it is time for this segment of history to repeat itself, maybe in Iraq,'' the flier concluded. ''The question is, where do we find another Black Jack Pershing?''

Entire article: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/a...article3957.htm

or: http://www.dfw.com/mld/belleville/news/618...intstory.jsp&1c

or: http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/new...ion/6186512.htm



Love to hear some opinions....