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I don't think the PRC could make it to Mars before the Russians or US if they tried. If they made a serious push, either NASA the ESA or both together would probly mount a crash program to get there first. China still has no manned space experience, no experience with HLV's, interplanetary probes, and very little experience in space in general. I would hate for them to go there first, have an accident, kill the crew, and discourage others from going.
If the Commies were there, I would sure bring some way for the crew to defend themselves to Mars, you could never be sure they wouldn't try something if it hit the fan. "Our reactor failed, we're taking yours"
Have you looked at the latest GDP figures for China? Its now $8 trillion compared to $12.5 trillion for the United States. Seems to me that if this trend continues, China will overtake the USA as the largest Superpower sometime in the second decade of the 21st century. Worst of all, do you want some Dictator taking the position as the top Dog in the Chinese Century? What will happen to the free world in that case. I think we should take the opportunity and grab hold of Mars while we are still ahead. Once China passes us, there is no catching back up. We have a window of opportunitystretching from now until 2020, if we pass it up and find, "better things to spend our money on", then China will dominate space for the next century, we'll all have to learn that very difficult language of Chinese and their thousand character alphabet and learn how to bow to their communist emperor. I think we should try to break out into space and leave our mark on human history before the World becomes part of the Chinese Empire.
Have you looked at the latest World Almanac Statistics for China, last year the GDP was 7 trillion, now its 8 trillion. the US GDP is 12.5 trillion! Seems to me that China is rapidly catching up with the United States. If we are to get to Mars first, we had better do it soon, before China overtakes us and steals the planet out from under our noses.
Yes, I was in the midst of a discussion with a self-described anarchist on another thread, and I must have crossed wires, sorry.
I think a society needs law and order, some people think it does not, but they tend to think of the disorder spreading in one direction and not in another. I tend to think that if there is too little government, then people will start settling scores with violence rather than calling the authorities that they deem powerless. There is a minimum amount of things that need to be done to prevent society from breaking down and from groups within that society from strong-arming their neighbors and imposing their own order. I don't think government should be so controlling that it should be telling its every citizen how to think and how to live, islamic theocracies tend to be very oppressive as well as the regimes in Cuba and North Korea.
Its right there in the dictionary, I didn't make up the definition. Anarchy is the total collapse of civil order, anarchy is everyman for himself. anarchy is yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater and people trampling each other to get to the exits! That is what most people mean when they say anarchy.
I sit upon "most of the people" understandings of a single word !
Instead of making up new definitions for the word anarchy so you can call yourself an anarchist, why don't you just look in the dictionary and find another word which describes you? If you are an advocate of chaos and confusion and pandemonium as well, then you are an anarchist.
You're just nitpicking on a word to avoid the main, which is that Israel does'nt comply to international laws, steals day after day palestinian soils, confine a whole people under unacceptable conditions of living while complaining that peoples kept behind barbed wires like in a huge concentration camp revolt against this pressure.
Well maybe if the Israelis chafe under International Law, why don't you recognize that maybe they are just anarchists as well? An anarchist would say that if there is any law you don't like, just ignore it. If you want something steal it, and might makes right, those are positions held by various anarchists. To an anarchist war is a natural state of things, but you must remember that other people can war against you as well as you against them.
When peoples complain that they suffered nazi barbary, they don't inflict such pains to others.
You act like there is a difference between that the Palestinians are doing to Jews and what the Nazis did.
Now this is about Iran, every Europeans agree that Iran shouldn't have nuclear weapons, has full rights to have electric nuclear power plants as soon as it complies to IAEA rules.
Why doesn't somebody just built a nuclear power plant outside their country, and run wires into their country and the Iranians can pay for it. There is alot of existing nuclear technology that would be cheaper than the Iranians developing their own, and then the Iranains can have their "nuclear" electricity without the rest of the world having to worry about their developing nuclear bombs.
First it was Islamists. Now it's Anarchists. Give it a rest, guys.
Sorry, but Tom Kalbfuss acts as the most vicious lawyers, when he has no more arguments, he discusses event the words used by opponents, as he considers that the main isn't to have rationnal arguments, but having the last word is being right.
"The first modern systematic exponent of anarchism was William Godwin. . . . Strongly influenced by the sentiments of the French Revolution, he argued that since man is a rational being he must not be hampered in the exercise of his pure reason.
Its right there in the dictionary, I didn't make up the definition. Anarchy is the total collapse of civil order, anarchy is everyman for himself. anarchy is yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater and people trampling each other to get to the exits! That is what most people mean when they say anarchy.
I heard that an anarchist assassinated the Russian Czar, the one before Nicolaus II, he was a reformer, wanted to democratize Russia in the 19th Century and some anarchist assassinated him simply because he wanted chaos and confusion, he was replaced with the more autocratic Nicolaus II. I don't know how you could get more evil than that. If it weren't for that anarchist assassin, Russia might well be on its way toward a Parlimentary Democracy with a constitutional monarch instead of the dictator system it has today.
If the International Rules say, Jew must die, and that its ok for Palestinians to kill them, but not ok for the Israeli Jew to defend himself,
The international rules say that no people should be occupied and his territory taken by foreign forces.
Didn't you say previously that you were an anarchist? I don't see why an anarchist should insist that the United States obeys any rules, international of otherwise.(...)So whats the point of rules if only the United States obeys them and nobody else does.
Rather an anarchist. Anarchists do obey laws as long as laws aren't opposed to ethic.
an.ar.chy 1. Absence of any form of political authority. 2. Political disorder and confusion. 3. Absence of any cohesive principle, such as a common standard or purpose.
[b]The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language - third edition - copyright (c) 1992 by the Houghton Mifflin Company.
Seems to me, that with that definition in mind, an Anarchist wouldn't support the existance of the UN or any government, so why would one insist that the United States obey UN rules, if he doesn't even think that the UN or any country has the right to exist?
Tom, you hang onto the attitude that your country must be good, therefore your country's politicians must be good, therefore any ally those politicians have formed an alliance with must be good. Well, bull shit! That's just stupid. Just because some American politician said Israel is a country and Palestine is not, does not make it so. The Jews that I've talked to always say "They aren't like you and me, they're animals." The Palestinians say "They aren't like you and me, they're animals." Sound familiar? That sort of name calling is what perpetuates conflict. The accusation that Palestine does not deserve a country because some politician said so but Israel does will only result in armed conflict. You're attitude is the problem. You are the problem. People are dying because of you. You! YOU!
You over estimate my importance. The World does not hang on every word I say, and that being the case, I can give my honest opinion on what I think, and I think the Palestinians engage in terrorism. Just the other day, they were congregating around some terrorist mastermind to prevent an Israeli airstrike against him, and it worked! If a bunch of Jews congregated in one place, a Palestinian terrorist would not be deterred, he would say, the more casualities the better, they look for crowds to blow up? Also consider the motives of people who want to protect terrorists that kill Jews, are these innocent civilians were talking about here, or are they just terrorists out of uniform? You are just biased against Jews and Americans so trying to reason with you is just a wasted effort.
One American once said to me, when talking about Washington's attempt to dominate Canada, "Would you prefer Britain dominated Canada?" That statement shows the fundamental bias and illustrates the problem. What the hell makes you think anyone in another country will let anyone dominate them? As long as America attempts to dominate, America is the problem. The mantra within America is "Freedom", why don't you understand that everyone else wants freedom too? The friction between Canada and the US is caused by the belief that Canada is a vassal state, subservient to America, rather than a partner and equal to America.
It is a belief propagated by Canadians in Canada looking for someone safe to defy. They want to rattle their sabers at America rather than contribute in any useful way in the War on terrorism, because the former is a cheap stunt they can pull. They want to create divisions between the US and Canada so they can exploit them to gain power. If you want Canada to eventually go to War with the United States and lose, then you just go down that path, reap the short term rewards from it, and then get the hell out before the war you started breaks out. People who sow divisions between otherwise peaceful countries are parasites. This is little better than the Jew-baiting Hitler used to gain power in Germany.
In my travels through America, I found many Americans do actually understand the concept of freedom. Unfortunately there's also a lot of people like you who do not. You keep thinking that America has a God given right to rule and anyone to challenges that must be defeated.
I never said that. All I basically said, is that assuming people don't want freedom, then its better that they are under the thumb of someone who's friendly to us rather than someone who's hostile. Take the Shah of Iran for instance, he was friendly to the United States, then came the revolution which overthrew him and he was replaced with a much more tyranical leader who wasn't friendly to us. I say the Iranains were better off under the Shah and we certainly were better off with the Iranians under the Shah. The Revolution wasn't a democratic one, so why should we respect would be tyrants trying to overthrow other tyrants if the result is a more hostile state toward us? If it was an expression of people chaffing under the yolk of oppression, then that's one thing, but the Iranian revolution wasn't one of those that brought freedom.
No, you haven't won. You just have demonstrated the attitude of the idiot. You've refused to listen, you refused to learn. You hang onto the myth of "we good, they bad". That's the attitude the creates and perpetuates war. To quote a famous person in history "Those who live by the sword, die by the sword." This is a test, who said that? I doubt you'll understand. Here's another quote from the same person, one often repeated by people who don't have a clue what it means: "The meek shall inherit the Earth." Here's a clue to it's real meaning, when does someone inherit something? Why would the meek be alive to inherit, and those who aren't meek no longer here?
It is the terrorists that live by the sword, we use it only when we have too. Liberals on the other hand seem to want us to just give up and surrender.
If the International Rules say, Jew must die, and that its ok for Palestinians to kill them, but not ok for the Israeli Jew to defend himself,
The international rules say that no people should be occupied and his territory taken by foreign forces.
Didn't you say previously that you were an anarchist? I don't see why an anarchist should insist that the United States obeys any rules, international of otherwise.
The whole point of anarchy is to have no rules and have each nation do whatever it wants regardless of consequences. Today, the world is pretty much an anarchist's paradise, we have wars, nations ignoring the UN and obeying international rules only when they feel like it, and you stick up for Iran when it wants to build nuclear weapons. So whats the point of rules if only the United States obeys them and nobody else does.
What you have against evangelicals and Jews I don't know,
Both say that Israel is THE elected people, therefore has superiority over other peoples.
Islam is an evangelical religion, they attempt to spread their faith and convert nonbelievers. Judaism is a non-evangelical religion, they don't attempt to spread their faith except through bearing of offspring and passing on their religions teachings to the next generation, but Jews don't actively seek converts, and seeking converts is the definition of evangilization.
How does one get to be head of an Islamic organization. Some will rise from the Suicide ranks no doubt. You can't always assume that Islam is a fraud perpertrated on the ranks by an educated leader who knows better. Just because something hasn't happened before doesn't mean that it won't happen. How many passenger airplanes were deliberately crashed into buildings before 9/11?
I think I have won this argument on most points. I doubt there is anything I could say that could convince DonPanic, so I'll let what I wrote stand for itself. I find myself stressing the same points over and over again. Its obvious that what the world expects of Israel is vastly different from what it expects of the Palestinians.
I do not believe a minority has the right to wrest control of the government away from the majority. Those things that a society must decide on need to be governed by the Majority. Things like how much to spend of defense, what the tax rates should be etc.
On the otherhand their are insects on Earth that can carry multiple times their own weight, being small simulates the effects of lesser gravity, but insects typically are stronger than they need to be just to carry themselves. On Mars, you could have one human standing on the shoulders of another human who is standing on the shoulders of yet another human and the person on the bottom will feel like he is carrying just his own weight. Whatever he can carry in addition to those two extra humans would be what he could carry on Earth times three!
Maybe so, I don't claim to be a disease specialist, but viruses are acts of nature and soldiers must go where ever they are needed regardless of the natural environment.
Malaria isn't virus decease, it's a parasit called Plasmodium falciparum
Don't really care what you call it, it is still an act of nature.
A soldier faces possible death when he goes to war, a virus is just one possible source of death alongside bullets and bombs. It doesn't matter how you end up dead.If the communists weren't trying to take over,then our soldiers wouldn't have had to have been their and wouldn't have died from malaria. if their was anyone at fault it was those northern communists for fighting and making it necessary for the United States to send troops.
You had a conscript army of kids wich did'nt choose to go at war, but were arbitrarily sent to oppose at Viet Nam unification and which weren't defending USA, but a puppet dictator called Diem which was hatred by majority of the South Vienameses which are bouddist, Diem being a so-called christian, a foreign seed,
same as if you had a muslim dictator ruling USA and favourising Islam. After Diem, all South Vietnamese leaders were choosen by the US among a military junta. Nothing "democratic".
Come on, I don't see the difference between one autocrat and another. If as you say, the Vietnamese are happy to live under one dictator and have no say in choosing their government,then why shouldn't they be happy to live under another? If they want to choose their government, then they want a democracy; the communists weren't offering them a democracy.
If you need to understand one thing about me, it is that I believe that people should choose their own governments. If government taxes, then government is spending your money as a fiduciary in your name, its obligation is to serve the people and to make sure that it serves the people, the people are to choose the government.
That's ideologic, I'm not, what's important is people's welfare, better a soft and protective autocrat than a co-called democracy led by financial private interests like most of today's so called democracies. To my eyes, most of them are mainly ploutocracies where leaders can't rise and campaign unless they can collect money from lobbies, and where political staffs answer the interests of lobbies before answering the population's needs.
You sound ideologic, but slanted against US interests where ever their is a choice, and here you are in this paragraph advocating a "soft and protective autocrat" whereas previously you were complaining about "puppet dictator" Diem. I don't see the differnce, in neigther case, does the people get a say in choosing their government, accepting your argument that Diem was a dictator for the moment. If they are content to live under a dictator, then I see no point in them rising up and dying by the millions trying to fight US soldiers so that they get yet another dictator who won't let them choose their government. Each dictator has his own ideas, and he implements them without regard for the will of the people. If the Vietnamese were not ready to govern themselves, then they should not have fought, there is no point in dying if it is not for a cause worth fighting for.The only point of agreement with you is that communism leeds to an autocratic system, but just take notice that the communists succedded to devellop the vietnamese economy in spite of US economical sanctions. Diem was developing the Vietnamese economy too, in spite of communist attacks and the war. Had the US had its way, Vietnam would be a working democracy by now, much like South Korea, it would probably be manufacturing and exporting Vietnamese cars, and electronics by now, instead of playing catch up after all that time wasted fighting and trying to implement the communist system after millions died trying to fight democracy and freedom.
Your Vietnamese? I didn't know that, I assumed you were French. I just curious, if you think the North were the good guys and they won, why did you immigrate to France?
I'm french, I didn't choose, my father was a french army high rank officer, he was choosen by the former VietNam emperor's as his personnal army commander because he was the only french high rank officer who spoke fluently vietnamese and felf himself as being an adoptive vietnamese, he dyed in France always hoping for a coming back to VietNam, whatever would have been the regime. Now, I think mainly in french, all my relatives and friends are french, and the communist regime has still too tough rules for the returning peoples. Maybe in the future, I'll return to motherland. Right now, I live in among the Paris nicest places. In fact, with Internet and my job, I could manage to live anywhere in the world.
Well France is a democracy, I'm surprised you choose to live there. Do you make a conscious effort not to vote, since you don't believe in democracy?
I believe the right to choose one's government is innate, and that was the cause we fought for in Vietnam, that the Democrats did not sustain it, was their fault, not the fault of the soldiers who fought there.
The United States wasn't trying to return Vietnam to French colonial rule, it was only trying to safeguard South Vietnamese freedoms against the North's aggression. If the price for Vietnamese reunification is living under a tyrant, that is a price not worth paying.
USA supported tyrants as well in south Vietnam, more interested in growing their personnal fortune than taking care of the population, that's why so-called South VietNam leaders never had a moral superiority and full population agreement to fight North.
Well, if your truly talking about tyrants, then the support of the people does not matter as they are not consulted. The communists weren't democrats, they offered the people nothing, so why should people fight and die for them, seems like all they're doing is placing someone else in power and getting nothing in return, I don't think that's worth dying for.
Germany was reunited but under democratic terms where the East Germans gained the right to vote and to choose their own government.
So many former East Germans have nostalgy of their former government...
Like the admirers of Hitler perhaps? A German Communist and a German Nazi are basically the same to me, they both shoot at Americans, and they are both "Krauts" or enemy Germans with a gun that want to kill you. These Germans that want Communism are just as much a threat to democracy and people's rights to vote as were the Hitlerites that took over power in 1933, it was of no comfort to the people that died in the gas chambers that some Germans wanted this form of government. People who pine for dictatorships are those people who want to deprive their fellow citizens of the right to vote, and in the case of the Nazis, deprive the Jews of their lives.
The South Vietnamese lost their right to vote ans choose their own government with the North conquered them. I think communism has been more oppressive for the South Vietnamese than French Rule ever has been,
The south Vietnamese lost their right to be governed by US supported puppets.
Most of the French colonists called disdainfully the Vietnamese "gnakaes", an equivalent for "gooks", and fueled lot of vietnamese rally with the VietMinhs"Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me." I really don't know what the North Vietnamese were fighting for, because the French have called them names? The French call alot of people names, including us Americans.
I say that the Vietnamese should be allowed the right to vote in compedative elections and choose who governs over them. That was all that America really wanted when it fought there.
Fairy tale in your mind, as I said, USA supported a local dictator, and military intervention in Viet Nam responded to communism containment strategy, the US didn't came to Viet Nam for the Viets' freedom.
Those fighting for communism weren't fighting for democracy either, I don't see what's the point your trying to make? I would understand a rebellion by people who truly wanted to be free, but a rebellion of communists who wanted to live under another dictator? I think whatever puppet dictatorship your talking about, would have done a good job, if they didn't have to fight a Soviet supported Communist insurgency. Wars are a drain on the economy, if the Vietnamese who were fighting the government wanted a better life for themselves, they should have stopped fighting. Putting another dictator in power that they have no control over at their live's expense makes no sense.
And the North Vietnamese did not kill women and children? Come now, in modern warfare both sides are typically reduced to the level of "monsters" because the imprecise weapons and the inability to identify the right target often leads to civilian casualities.
The North Vietnameses caused less accidental casualties in civilian population than the US, because local pro VC network helped the North Vietnamese troops to know who collaborated with the US or not.
That's the point they fought in towns and villages and used human shields. The American Soldiers did not have human shields, so when the VC shot at them, their were alot fewer civilian casualities. When you shoot from a crowd of innocent civilians against soldiers that do not use the tactic of hiding in crowds, you are in part responsible for the casualities suffered in the return fire you get from those soldiers you are shooting at. You are giving the enemy soldier a choice, either fight back and harm innocent civilians or stand their and die while you shoot at them from crowds and villages. Most people if given a choice would probably choose to live and make someone else die, rather than die themselves. If the VC were truly worried about civilian casualities, they would fight US troops out in the open, away from civilians so that civilians would not be hurt!
It was a pro Soviet Socialist, they were all set to overthrow democracy just like Hitler did
This is political fiction, not facts
We are in 2006, your constant reference to Hitler is childish, there are no concentration camps in Iran, Iran has not territorial ambitions.
Hitler is a good example because you won't believe any left wing examples I give.
Always hammering the same example don't give you more credibility
The the production capacity of solar panels will expand, because the people making solar panels will want to makes as much money as possible, and they will expand their production capacity. the only reason Nuclear Power has alure for the Iranians is that it provides a suitable lie and cover for them while they seek to build nuclear bombs. you bought the Old North Korean lie too, right up until the end when they admitted they were actually building nuclear war heads. the main flaw of solar energy is you can't make bombs out of them. Nuclear fuel is also not a renewable resource just like the fossil fuel they sell. Nuclear reactors also produce their own pollution in the form of radioactive waste. The Sun will last longer that Earth's entire supply of uranium.
That's why you have a hundred power plants...
How about we launch a nuclear Orion spaceship over your house,how would you like that?
Your most stupid argument! M.A.D. ! 192 nukes would be fired back on USA as a retaliation, and Ayatollahs aren't that stupid to provoque a nuke strike on Iran.
I don't know how stupid the Ayatollahs are, if they believe they have a hotline direct from God and that God is telling them to do all these things, then they are clearly not all that smart. It is sometimes just as dangerous to overestimate you enemies intelligence and not prepare for his stupidity as to underestimate them. Clearly there are many cases where you can argue that the enemy was being stupid, like that Al Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center for example, clearly no one would be that stupid and take on the worlds formost superpower, could they? Any smart terrorist would not make such a stupid attack on us and bring down our whole military potential right down on their heads. What did they think, that George Bush was a Jimmy Carter who wouldn't react to that?
Iran has no nuclear weapons, and even when it does it will only have a few, and then it thinks it can attack American citizens willy nilly and get no reaction from us? Sooner or later Iran will push us too far and we will react to their sorrow, they just keep on pushing the boundaries though, to see where they are perhaps, to see what they can get away with, I think that is very dangerous and stupid of them. They can't just nuke an American city and then claim that they really didn't mean it, but they are seeing how close they can actually come to hurting America and how far they can go before America reacts, its not like they haven't given us plenty of warning, "Death To America!" and all that, it is not like we are naive and don't know what they are all about, they are the sort of violent fanatical country that we would not like to see obtaining nuclear weapons, their very possession of such things is a mortal threat to us, considering all the stupid things they have done in the past, and I believe military action is justified to stop them, no matter what other side complications this may cause. Stopping them is certainly better than risking these violent fanatics possibly killing millions of Americans. That is the thing about fanatics, they often don't make sense and are unpredictable.
I believe nuclear power is dangerous because someone can make nuclear bombs out of the byproducts, and because our enemy suddenly wants nuclear power, your suddenly spouting all their virtues of nuclear power, how its the wave of the future and is going to solve all our energy needs with atomic powered cars, airplanes, and spaceships. Some country that gets its people to chant, "Death to America!" on a regular basis is not a country that I want to see developing nuclear power. I wish the George Bush government would take some concrete actions to stop Iran rather than just the placebo of talk and more talk. They'll talk themselves blue in the face, and when Iran gets nuclear weapons, they'll have an excuse and say they tried to do something, but it was to no avail. I consider talking to be not doing anything. What we should be doing is giving a warning that something bad will happen if they don't comply, and if they don't comply then letting something bad happen to them.
Clerics are human and just as capable of lying as everyone else.
like a Bush still seaching WMD in Iraq and not finding any
There is nothing to negotiate, Iran must stop, and if it doesn't their must be consequences. I notice you are always taking the side of our enemy no matter who it might be, whether communists, Islamic fanatics, tribal chieftains, what have you, if it goes against America, you all for it. and that is why I have so much trouble agreeing with you, for I was born in america, and I always hear you criticising my country.
No, Im' criticizing you personnaly, maybe cons and evangelicals too, as having a paranoid view on the world and being unable to discriminate among middle east who is to fight and who is to negociate with, and this is very clumsy.
Out of these disputes, I feel as a world citizen, not so different form any average rather leftist and peaceful US citizen; I like US SF books, US music except for bluegrass, US movies, US scientific research, I was as horrified as you by the 9/11 attack
In order for Americans to get in groove with the left wing, they are required to hate their own country and to always be suspicious of whatever their own government is doing and if something goes wrong, always to blame America first, this just doesn't sit well with me, do you understand? What you have against evangelicals and Jews I don't know, I believe they should have the freedom to worship and be allowed to try to convince others to worship as they do, so long as they are not hurting anybody else. I believe in the freedom of religion, but not in the freedom of violent religions to commit violence, that is where I draw the line.
They do not comply with international rules. Although the UN is now trying to say that they are special and that the rules don't apply to them so long as they act against America's
You support Israel which sits upon international rules and when international rules are not in favour of USA, USA sits upon international rules, so ?
If the International Rules say, Jew must die, and that its ok for Palestinians to kill them, but not ok for the Israeli Jew to defend himself, that is not just, and I don't feel any responsibility to adhere to any unjust International rule system that is based on antisemetic prejudice. The International Rules systems aren't based on democratic rules anyway, they are only agreements between democracies and dictatorships,and any compromise between just and unjust is by definition unjust, maybe a little less wrong, but still wrong.
with DDT. If people are resistant to malaria, its also possible to vaccinate against it.
Vaccination against malaria still doesn't exist ! You are scientifically wrong.
There are peoples with natural immunities as variants in a population genetic pool, with natural selection, they become the most numerous in the population.
Maybe so, I don't claim to be a disease specialist, but viruses are acts of nature and soldiers must go where ever they are needed regardless of the natural environment. A soldier faces possible death when he goes to war, a virus is just one possible source of death alongside bullets and bombs. It doesn't matter how you end up dead. If the communists weren't trying to take over,then our soldiers wouldn't have had to have been their and wouldn't have died from malaria. if their was anyone at fault it was those northern communists for fighting and making it necessary for the United States to send troops.
Its not a theory, communism is an ideology that is designed to spread, and indeed here I see you are trying to perpetuate it.
I'm not trying to spread anything, as some kind of a non violent anarchist, communists would eliminate me among their first ennemies.
Im' just explaining that communist ideology can fit with some populations traditionnal way of life, ancient Inca empire was a communist type of society.
It also wasn't very democratic either. If you need to understand one thing about me, it is that I believe that people should choose their own governments. If government taxes, then government is spending your money as a fiduciary in your name, its obligation is to serve the people and to make sure that it serves the people, the people are to choose the government. I don't like the various forms of autocratic rule where the government keeps itself in power by force and steals the resources of the people. I feel communism is a fraud, it makes promises so that it can get in power, then it removes the people's ability to select a new government and of the people to hold the government resposible for fulfilling the promises it made to get into power in the first place. The people are the employer and those in power are the employees. The employer ought to be allowed to fire its employees if it feels that they are not doing a good job. Under communism the employee has taken away the employer's ability to fire it. The government is no longer accountable to the people under communism, and so it steals resources, money, property, and labor from the people however it sees fit, and I don't see that as just, no matter how many flowery promises it makes to the outside world while it doing this.
North Vietnam started the war, it invaded the South. the United States did not start the Vietnam War, we were only trying to defend the South from the North.
Nonsense !
The Vietcongs were nationalist and bouddhist south vietnameses which rebelled against the south vietnamese regime set first by the Frenches, then supported by the US, as Vietcong were reinforced by northern troops.
Vietnameses are home in all Vietnam, my sister was born in hanoi, i was born in Nhatrang, were aren't strangers at each other by some arbitrary fronteer, should France and USA had understood that fact, they wouldn't have supported any camp and let things go on.
Your Vietnamese? I didn't know that, I assumed you were French. I just curious, if you think the North were the good guys and they won, why did you immigrate to France? Wasn't it France whose yolk your people were supposedly trying to overthrow? So why would you go to France and be under French rule once again?
The United States wasn't trying to return Vietnam to French colonial rule, it was only trying to safeguard South Vietnamese freedoms against the North's aggression. If the price for Vietnamese reunification is living under a tyrant, that is a price not worth paying. Germany was reunited but under democratic terms where the East Germans gained the right to vote and to choose their own government. The South Vietnamese lost their right to vote ans choose their own government with the North conquered them. I think communism has been more oppressive for the South Vietnamese than French Rule ever has been, and the fact that your living in France and not Vietnam would seem to indicate your preference for which system is more just, so why do you disagree with me about the US aims in the vietnam war being just? Alot of you fellow country men who still live in vietnam do not get to choose their own government, as prosperous as they may be, it is still under one-party communist rule. Maybe the communists don't take their own ideology seriously, but they still maintain their monopoly on power, and I don't think that is right. If the people think the communists are doing a good job, then they should have an opportunity to reelect them back into power in a compedative election, if not, they should be allowed to choose another government. I don't think I am being racist when I say that the Vietnamese should be allowed the right to vote in compedative elections and choose who governs over them. That was all that America really wanted when it fought there.
Same with USA for which southern secession was a rebellion, is that too difficult to understand ?
Actually I have a great deal of difficulty understanding why the South would want to rebel in order to keep slaves. Alot of southerners died for their slaves, it makes no sense to me. The gig was up, in a democracy, majority rules and in the case of Lincoln's election, the majority decided that slavery was immoral and apparetly the South couldn't live with that, and so we had the bloodiest conflict the United States was ever to participate in. The amount of casualities we suffered in Vietnam pales in comparison to what we suffered in the 1860s. My Ancestor Sgt. Thomas B Kalbfus fought for the First Pennsyvania Regiment in 1861. I'm proud to say, he fought for the North and for abolishing slavery.
The only difference is that the so-called rebels won, anyways, when emperor Bao Dai took exile to France, he was replaced by Diem which had not any legitimacy.
More fairly tales, we didn't win because the Democrats in Congress didn't want us to win,
Napalm over vietnamese villages isn't fairy tales, and when foreigners come to kill women and children, whatever their reasons are, they have yet morally lost the war, that's what you don't want to see, and then there is no more support for the warmongers in your own country.
And the North Vietnamese did not kill women and children? Come now, in modern warfare both sides are typically reduced to the level of "monsters" because the imprecise weapons and the inability to identify the right target often leads to civilian casualities. The North Soldiers hid behind the skirts of those women we killed because they were cowards and wouldn't come out in the open to fight us man to man. I am sure the US army would have no interest in killing women and children if the North Soldiers didn't use them as cover. Our goal was to defeat the communists. It maybe there was hardly any difference in the sides that were fighting, but in the end, when we left the field, the North took away Vietnam's freedoms, and that is the most important thing. If you can't tell the difference between the sides during the war, you can certainly tell afterwards. Vietnam is somewhat behind, after trying communism for a while and finding it lacking it went into market reforms and it is catching up with the rest of the world. I think Vietnam would be ahead of where it is now, if the United States won.
In a foreign country where you don't know who and where your ennemies are, you don't know if the smiling local guy is friendly or will shoot at you as soon as you turn back, killing innocent peoples is unavoidable, therefore soon or latter you are the bad guy even if you claim that your intentions are good.
You can win only by carnage, then the whole world points at you as the monster.
Same with Iraq.
Not necessary to achieve the same level of insolation as on Earth to have earth-like conditions. Actually , hundreds of times less are enough, provided that the balance infalling radiation / reflection, emission is as high that the equilibrium is achieved in normal temperature range for the habitable layer under the optical / infrared surface... also the flux of free energy which to be utilized by the eventual biosphere producers is not necessary to be photonic...
Look again in "Gerald Nordley surface gravity" -- google for it, a .pdf will appear -- Titan...
Well terraforming does mean making the planet habitable for humans. I think their may be Earth-sized planets underneath the layers of gases in side Neptune and Uranius. If you increase the light levels on those planets, you could dissappate away some of that hydrogen, thin out the atmosphere and let the heavier gasses remain. I think what you would have left would be a liquid water planet. You would need to provide some floating platform to support the complex life you want to seed there. I heard somewhere that there may be a water ocean underneath the thick atmospheres of Neptune and Uranius. If we could blow away the atmosphere of each planet and heat up the surfaces with giant mirrors, we coule retain the oceans. Of the two, I think Uranius might be the more likely prospect as it is closer to the Sun and its surface gravity is 0.794 times that of Earth. You would probably reduce its diamter by getting rid of its atmosphere, but we are talking about a planet 4 times the diameter of Earth, the price you pay for having such a huge planet with a low density is that its made mostly of water, you would want to float some artificial continents on it. A planet 4 times the size of Earth could have 16 times Earth's surface area if you keep the land to water ratio the same Neptune is another 16 Earths worth of living space if properly terraformed, it is somewhat smaller so you'd need greater land area in proportion to total surface area. Uranius's mearly 90 degree tilt probably doesn't matter too much since the reflective mirror would be providing most of the illumination.
We did, cause we had more dollars to start out with, it is worth spending more to save a pilot's life. Since we fought the Vietnam war for ten years, we could have fought it for another ten. Firefighters and police also die every year, the trick is to accept the losses on our side while making the enemy's losses too high and too unacceptable for them to sustain. Judging from the casuality rates of the enemy, it appears they could not sustian such losses over a multi-decade span of time. We were killing millions of them, and they were killing only tens of thousands of us, a 100:1 ratio. North Vietnam didn't have 100 times our population, so victory on our side would have been inevitable if only we stayed the course until the North no longer had soldiers to throw at us. Perhaps the Chinese would have moved in afterwards, well that is an invasion then. It would be easier to get the South Vietnames to fight the Chinese since they don't even speak their language.
Maybe it can be both a reflector and a solar sail, using light pressure to maintain its position against Martian gravity and also reflecting that light to Mars. Another sort of reflector can also block light from reaching Venus. Uranius is a possible terraforming target, it receives 3.8 watts per net6er squared, the Earth receives 1380. square_root(1380/3.8 ) = 19. 19 x the diameter of Uranus 51,118 km = means that you need a solar sail about 971,242 km in diameter to provide the same illumination on Uranus as their is on Earth.
can anyone think of any reasons it couldn't work now
Why is it that everyones' default position is that "new technology" will magically make all things possible? Why is that the default position for grand ideas is that they ought to work?
The reason why it wouldn't work very well is because the thing would be so heavy if made of metal, or so expensive if it were made from composites, that such a rocket doesn't make much sense.
Such is the siren call of the snake oil saleman!
They started it! It is up to them to make peace with us, and they haven't tried very hard.
Hey, weren't kids in a schoolyard, no matter who started, Iranians can always say that USA and GB started ousting Mossadegh democratic regime and set a pro west dictator for oil.
It was a pro Soviet Socialist, just like Chavez, they were all set to overthrow democracy just like Hitler did, through legislative means. We were just guarding our interests knowing that Democracy was doomed their anyway, besides you say they weren't ready for democracy, we just made sure that whatever ubndemocratic government ended up their was on our side of the Cold War. Jimmy Carter just didn't understand this and let things fall apart.
We are in 2006, your constant reference to Hitler is childish, there are no concentration camps in Iran, Iran has not territorial ambitions.
Hitler is a good example because you won't believe any left wing examples I give. Because of your political leanings, you will only believe that white people who dress as Nazis and are racists can be bad, if it is anyone other than white people doing these things, and some of their victims are white people, you are going to find excuses for them, just as you have for the Palestinians attacks on Israeli Jews, who are mostly white people by the way.
we have to stop fueling fires in middle east.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6153120.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6156024.stmStill it is not a gloomy place! it is probably cheapest of all forthem to burn natural gas from their oil wells and generate electricity from that. Nuclear is not cheap, especially if they plan to process their own fuel, and defy the world and enhure sanctions, and to invest in their military and be wary of the United States. if Iran wasn't so paranoid, it could takes all these expenditures from their oil revenue and build a nice great big solar panel array,
I think that you are misinformed, to build a giant solar array up to produce the same electric supply as one nuclear reactor would absorb five times the yearly world solar panels production.
The the production capacity of solar panels will expand, because the people making solar panels will want to makes as much money as possible, and they will expand their production capacity. the only reason Nuclear Power has alure for the Iranians is that it provides a suitable lie and cover for them while they seek to build nuclear bombs. you bought the Old North Korean lie too, right up until the end when they admitted they were actually building nuclear war heads. the main flaw of solar energy is you can't make bombs out of them. Nuclear fuel is also not a renewable resource just like the fossil fuel they sell. Nuclear reactors also produce their own pollution in the form of radioactive waste. The Sun will last longer that Earth's entire supply of uranium.
As for wind turbines, to generate the same electric power as a nuclear reactor, you need almost 2000 wind turbines with wind conditions over 5 yards a second to compete with a nuclear reactor, don't be daydreaming, US government doesn't push for nuclear power for fun.
If Iran complies to IAEA, there is no reason to be agressive at Iran
Teheran signed the non proliferation treaty.
How about we launch a nuclear Orion spaceship over your house,how would you like that?
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons on August 9, 2005. The full text of the fatwa was released in an official statement at the meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna
Remember that the clerics detain the real power in Iran, Ahmadinejad is just a "democratic" puppet.
and Clerics are human and just as capable of lying as everyone else.
Intelligence analysts say Iran could be anywhere from three to nine years away from having the ability to build an atom bomb.
There is still time for negociations, Iran is just pushing as tough bargains as can be.
There is nothing to negotiate, Iran must stop, and if it doesn't their must be consequences. I notice you are always taking the side of our enemy no matter who it might be, whether communists, Islamic fanatics, tribal chieftains, what have you, if it goes against America, you all for it. and that is why I have so much trouble agreeing with you, for I was born in america, and I always hear you criticising my country. You don't hear me criticising France nearly as much. I have nothing against France trying to help themselves or to protect its citizens, or improve itself economically, but when people like you always compalin abut my country and take the side of its enemy, I have trouble getting along. You have called me a racist for loving my own country and not hating it. I understand your patriotism, why can't you understand mine?
It's not because Israelis are hysterical about Iran and Iran hysterical about Israel that me must act the same way.
US and Euro politics aren't to be decided by Jerusalem.Don't say that I'm advocacing the Iranians' right to have nuclear weapons, they have the right to have nuclear power plants if they comply with the International Atomic Energy Agency rules. There is no nuclear energy monopoly for develloped countries, and alternative energy sources for the poor countries.
They do not comply with international rules. Although the UN is now trying to say that they are special and that the rules don't apply to them so long as they act against America's interests.
So Democracy Bad; Communist Dictatorship Good!
No, but you obviously don't understand democracy. The people who live in a country must decide what they want to do. If anyone outside that country attempts to impose their will with military might, it isn't democracy, it's imperial conquest. You keep buying into the "us vs. them" propaganda. It isn't that simple, never has been. Often both options presented are not acceptable. That's when you tell whoever is attempting to rig the decision to go **** himself. Was the only choice in Vietnam rule by the Soviets or rule by Washington? No, and the people of Vietnam didn't accept either.
Another thing you keep missing is the fact that communism is an economic system, not a political system.
Communism is about as economic a system as is the Army, and it workd the same. Communism has a top down authority structure, the people at the top give the orders and the people down below follow them or they go to the gulag. There is no private property because the leadership controls everything, they can give out privaleges and take them away as reward and punishment. the government decides how and whether to feed the people, they order people to produce and the reward and punish people for production and for their lyalty to the government. Communism is not about economic production, which takes a back seat, but about control, a communist system is designed to be controlled from the top. The government gives the orders and the population carries them out whether they make economic sense or not. Communist governments realize that people are their source of power, so therefore they try to do two things, one is keep them under control and the other is keeping them alive, and they also give out orders to spread the propaganda telling the World what a wonderful system communism is, and how the rest of the World should try it, no doubt under their direction.
Democracy is political, it selects the government by rule of the people. The opposite of communism is capitalism, but both extremes don't work. Actually, socialism is another system, it isn't a linear continuum. Look at America today, it has government controls over free enterprise, that's socialist. It also has labour unions, that communist. If you want to claim labour unions are anti-American, try saying that to the face of a Teamster. If you want to claim anti-trust laws are anti-American, try saying that to a small business owner who was forced out of business by a large corporation. Or a consumer who has to pay exorbitant prices for a product controlled by a monopoly. The system is the way it is for a reason; what works is a little of each system, extremism never works.
Communism is a means of control over an economy, it gives out directives that people must follow like soldiers in the army. If orders aren't obeyed their are serious consequences, but decisions are made from the top, not at the individual level. Under Capitalism, their are a bunch of individual decision makes called consumers that make most of the economic decisions for themselves. Communism is all about control control control, maximizing power at the top and staying in power, it does little for the average joe except make him obey the authorities.
The Soviet Union had a socialist economy with communist tendencies, but wasn't truly communist. Their political system was an oligarchy, rule by a small group. The real problem was the oligarchy. You can have a communist economy with a democratic political system; the Kibbutz of Israel made it work quite well. I believe the plural of Kibbutz is Kibbutzim. They restricted their communist economy to one small farming town each; that's the largest scale on which it works. On a large scale it's too easy to abuse the system, you have to know everyone with pier pressure to put in a hard day's work and show results. That only works for a small town where everyone knows each other. Some hippy communes in the United States also made it work; the trick was to keep it small. Do I want to live in a commune? No, but I don't treat anyone who does as evil.
In a commune everybody knows everybody, in large systems most people are strangers and all tyrants exploit that fact and can turn people against one another to produce a tyranny that accrues benefits for themselves. Its hard to have opne person be dictator over 9 other people. If the 9 people don't like him, they just get rid of him. When small numbers exist in isolation, the rule is either democracy or every man for himself. As the population gets bigger the leader can set up burocracies, comprised of people who don't know each other. people obey the leader because they fear what the burocracy will do to them. There are rules and regulations and people looking over other people's shoulders to make sure the rules are obeyed. The way the rules are put together can either benefit a dictator or run a Republic. Direct Democracy only works with small numbers, the exact system used to parcel out the goods and work is irrevelant as each individual is free to make his own decisions as to whether to obey the leader or not. Each person has his own circle of friends and supporters, it is a very democratic thing when you have small numbers of people, with larger numbers democracy begins to break down and either a Dictatorship or a Republic must fill the power vacuum.
Was our army crushed by the North Vietnamese? No it was not it was withdrawn because congress cut off the funds for continuing the operation. We were defeated by the Democrats that started this war apparently for the only reason of forcing the United States to lose a war! The United States cannot lose a war if their isn't one to begin with. John F. Kennedy took care of the War thing, and his successors took care of losing it. The only way Nixon could have won the Vietnam war with a hostile Congress would be to overthrow the Congress in a coup and establish himself as dictator so he could finish the war without interference. Nixon didn't want to try this step, so he resigned.
Ah, the rant of the war monger. We failed because we didn't use enough bombs. Well, as one Vietnamese official once said "What are they trying to do? Bomb us into the stone age? We already live in the stone age." High tech weaponry won't work for civilians dug into rough country with plenty of cover.
Such is a fairly tale about the little guy defying a large Army. nothing they did actually won the War for them, we had every advantage except for a sooperative Congress. If the North Vietnamese actually crushed and captured all of our soldiers and destroyed our army, I might agree with you, but it did not. Too many people apparently bought their propaganda.
As an alternative, try reading just a little about Gandhi. His got Britain to leave India. He didn't do so with direct military conflict, but rather by telling the people just to disobey. It didn't matter how many guns or bombs or high tech weaponry the British had, the citizens just didn't obey. What are you going to do, slaughter every man woman and child? In one dramatic demonstration Gandhi lead the Indian people to walk just two at a time into a compound guarded by soldiers. The soldiers beat them, and carried them off. But they just kept coming. They didn't rush the soldiers as a mob, they just calmly walked two at a time into the front gate. They did this until the soldiers realized this is a bad thing to do and stopped.
Its hard for the soldiers to realize they are doing a bad thing if all they are doing is defending themselves and their citizens from terrorist attacks. The idea of passive resistance completely escapes the Palestinians. All they know is to kill their enemies, which include women and children and then get revenge for attacks against them which may mean killing more women and children.
It didn't matter how much force the soldiers used, the civilians did not obey. That completely undermined British authority, effectively they didn't rule. All done without armed revolution. There are a lot of details, but that's how India separated from the British empire; it worked.
In Vietnam they chose to fight. But they did so with simple guns, hand grenades, and dug tunnels barely large enough to crawl through on your belly. Drop all the bombs you want, they won't collapse the tunnels beyond a very short radius. Bunkers were dug so deep that explosives dropped by aircraft of the day couldn't collapse them. They weren't fancy high tech bunkers, just deep. Locals were too well dung in, literally. There was no way to win. The victors could not have won if the locals didn't want them to. Same reason, locals on both sides could dig in. America had no chance to win because the Vietnamese people didn't want them to win.
More fairly tales, we didn't win because the Democrats in Congress didn't want us to win, america losing suited them just fine, it is always easier to lose a war than to win one, and here we see them doing that one more time. First they criticise the Bush Administration for not winning, and they do everything they can to see to it that they don't win, and when they gain power, instead of offering alternative strategies to win the war, they just set things up so that we deliberately lose, and they call getting us out of a war an accomplishment. The enemy makes a big gain, and later one, he may be encouraged to challenge and attack us again, just so long as the "we must lose the War" dynamic goes on in one of the major parties. All they have to do is make sure the Party that wants to win the war becomes unpopular so that the unpatriotic other party takes over and loses the war, because that's the only thing they know how to do. This almost worked for the Confederate South by the way.
I'm pretty sure it was standard policy to vaccinate soldiers for Malaria before sending them to Vietnam.
There is still not any anti malaria vaccin
As you are such naive, let me explain you that mosquitoes were used as a weapon by general Giap which alternated actions in Viet Nam highlands with mountain populations called Meos or Mois troopers and in low lands with Viets troopers, each population has specific immunities against mountain and low lands mosquitoes' species.
So, as US airborn troops were used everywhere, there were good probabilities they got infected by both mosquitoes species, one mosquito specie bite make sick, both are long term lethal. Just wonder why so many vets suffered so-called "post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)"
http://www.historynet.com/magazines/vie … 38271.html
Malaria used to be quite common in North America too, but we sprayed the place with DDT. If people are resistant to malaria, its also possible to vaccinate against it.
Was our army crushed by the North Vietnamese? No it was not it was withdrawn because congress cut off the funds for continuing the operation. We were defeated by the Democrats (...)
I do notice that you have none of any question on the morality of this war set up first by the French which thought they could restore their colonial empire, and by the USA which used so-called South Vietnam as a jack on their domino's theory.
Its not a theory, communism is an iseology that is designed to spread, and indeed here I see you are trying to perpetuate it. Communism is like bad medicine with a sugar coating. The first thing any communist does is criticise the system by pointing out its short comings, and then they say, "Trust me, I can fix things." What communism is really good at is producing critics of the system, they have no solutions other thanoverthrowing the system and putting them in power, and afterwards they rig the system so that no one can criticise them, they are basically fixing the weaknesses of the prior dictatorship or tyranny that wasn't able to stay in power. Controlling all the levers of power such and monopolizing employment, helps them to stay in power, even if it produces bad economic results. Just look at North Korea. People are starving there, but they will not overthrow the government, because the government has so many levers of power and they set people to spy and work against each other that rebellion is impossible. The communist countries that have fallen are the ones that have loosed up and allowed some measure of free expression, not the ones like North Korea, that have maintained tight-fisted control.
At first, it was an independence war, led by Viet nationalists, then they turned to whom could supply them with weapons, Moscow and Beijing.
Don't confuse independence with freedom. Alot of people on the left act as if independence is a meaningful thing to the common man, when all it really could mean is their dictator is free to act independently without an overlord looking over their shoulder.
I figure that if the Vietnamese weren't ready for democracy, the French might as well have maintained their Empire until they were.
So Democracy Bad; Communist Dictatorship Good!
VietNam, alike China had collectivist day to day practice in their traditions.
They use to harvest all toghether on each one cultivated parcels. That's much more efficient and enjoying a way than to cultivate alone. When young peoples get married, the whole villagers used to build them a house within couple of days.
Communism fitted to these countries, its was a rural based communism different from supposed urban labour class dictature described by Karl Marx.
You shouldn't confuse community spirit with Communism. Communism is always from the top down, it comes with a political leader that makes all the important decisions and it leaves the people below it without a voice in the government, because they aren't allowed to choose their government or replace it. the Government stays in power with any means available, and since they monopolize employment, everyone is working for them, this isn't a community government, it is the means of a self-perpetuating leadership to stay in power.
Our kill ratio in Vietnam was alot better (...)
All of your says are about war, destructions, retaliations, none of any of your posts are constructive, so up to my vietnam born child eyes, you are war freak, a napalmist predator, I see you with a much disgusting manner, as somebody which cannot even be called a human being, Mr Kalbfus
North Vietnam started the war, it invaded the South. the United States did not start the Vietnam War, we were only trying to defend the South from the North.
It's useless from you to try to answer or to say you aren't a bad guy, I can't see which answer from you couldn't boost more anger and hate at you, you are definitively a ennemy.
I never said the Vietnam war was a good thing, I only said we should have won it, so that future enemies wouldn't be so tempted to wage war on us such as Al Qaeda. I don't know what your problem is, I haven't done anything to France, I never hated France, I just wonder why some French such as yourself hate Americans, everything that's wrong with the world is America's fault you say,it never the fault of the people who attacked us or our allies, or the fault of the people who actually started the war. The Vietnam War was already going strong when we got involved, I don't know how you can accuse the United States of Starting the Vietnam War. We gave them a good fight, I can tell you that, we did not let the North win easily, but we did not start the War they started. If you French had managed your Empire properly, this War wouldn't have even happened.
Who were they trying to kill? Palestinians or Hezbollah leaders.
They didn't care if they killed dozens of innocent civilians while attempting to take out their target. I don't care how important they thought their target was, there's no excuse for killing innocent civilians. Besides, these attacks were conducted at a time there was no conflict with Palestine. That proves Israeal doesn't want peace, they are initiating the conflict.
Was Hezbollah at war with Israel? I think so, its mandate was to wipe Israel from existance, and the Palestinian authority allowed them to operate from their territory, they weren't fighting them, they were leaving them alone so that could go kill Israeli citizens. The reality of war is that if you live or work near the combatants of a War, you stand a chance of being one of the War's victims. A neutral country that hosts a hostile enemy is by definition not a neutral country. There is no way to fight a war without harming innocent victims, especially when the enemy uses those victims as human shields. You should have seen the devastation we inflicted on the Axis countries during World War II. I don't think there was any other way to win that war, short of the enemy just volunterring to give up and surrender for no reason, an action they didn't take.
You are diverting the issue, the question is not what one wears, but whether the killing inflicted is part of a military necessity and in achieving a specific military goal or is it just for the killing of a specific category of people.
I'm not diverting, that is the issue. Israel is trying to kill a specific category of people, the Palestinians. Israel wants to commit genocide, to kill all Palestinians so they can take all the land.
Show me the proof: Where are the Death camps, the Mass graves, the Death Squads? I don't see any of that. I only see the Israelis fighting a war with a group of insurgents buried within a civilian population. The reality of war means that some of those civilians are unavoidably going to die in order to kill those insurgents.
That's no different than the Arabs; radical Palestinians as well as other radical Arabs want to "push Israel into the sea". Same thing.
Precision guided missiles are expensive and not very efficient if the goal is to erradicate the Palestinian population. The Germans didn't need all that high tech cutting edge stuff when they were exterminating the Jews. What is you explaination for this lack of evidence that the Israelis are exterminating Palestinians other than they are not exterminating the Palestinians, but in fact fighting an insurgency that exists among them?
Some civilians undoubtably get killed in these operations, but it is not a systematic extermination effort.
So the Israelis have a powerful army and that makes everything they've done Ok.
No, if they used that army to commit the same objectives as they Palestinians are trying to do, they would be commiting genocide.
They are committing genocide.
It took the Germans 5 years to kill 6 million Jews. If the Israelis killed 6 million Palestinians in 5 years, how many Palestinians would be left today, it is a simple math problem, why don't you go figure it out?Look, before 1947 neither Israel nor Palestine existed as a country. Three groups of Israeli terrorists conducted terrorist attacks to achieve Israeli freedom. One group only attacked Arabs, but the other two attacked the British directly. The Israeli government was formed from the terrorist group that didn't directly attack the British. Palestine sees this as a model, Israel has taught them how to create a country, they're just following. In terms of "right", both groups have existed there since 1000BC, but neither was a country prior to 1947/48. Palestine is as much "right" as Israel.
So why don't they stop killing Jews so they can live in peace with the Israelis? They've been given some land in which to live. Why don't they stop killing Israelis so the Israelis can stop killing them?
Vietnam was undermined by "fifth columnists" that got elected into the US House of Representatives and the US Senate. Our "defeat" had nothing to do with the enemy and alot to do with traitors in our own legislature. Similarly the American people elected democrats because the Republicans weren't winning the War in Iraq to their satisfaction, they expected the Democrats to have better ideas on how to win, and yet all they brought to the table was a way to lose in 4 to 6 months
Um, what? That is such crap I don't know what to say. If you truly believe that then I'm wasting my time, you're so full of fantasies that you'll never listen to reality. The Vietnam War started under a Democrat administration. John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960, sworn in January 20,1961. After his assassination Lyndon B. Johnson completed his term of office, then was elected himself. Richard Nixon (Republican) was elected in 1968, sworn in on January 20, 1969. His election campaign was a secret plan to end the Vietnam War. After he was elected his "secret plan" proved to be raiding NASA's budget to supply funds to the military. We saw how well that worked out, the Vietnam War continued through 1975. Such a conflict was just wrong; you were meddling in affairs that were none of your business. South Vietnam president Diem did some really bad things that left legitimate grievances.
So Democracy Bad; Communist Dictatorship Good!
Was our army crushed by the North Vietnamese? No it was not it was withdrawn because congress cut off the funds for continuing the operation. We were defeated by the Democrats that started this war apparently for the only reason of forcing the United States to lose a war! The United States cannot lose a war if their isn't one to begin with. John F. Kennedy took care of the War thing, and his successors took care of losing it. The only way Nixon could have won the Vietnam war with a hostile Congress would be to overthrow the Congress in a coup and establish himself as dictator so he could finish the war without interference. Nixon didn't want to try this step, so he resigned.
During the Iraq-Iran war, Israel helped Iran. there is no fatality in an agressive iranian attitude at Israel. Shia islam have a long time been an ennemy of Salafi islam, and it remains. Shouting at Israel is just a way to boost Iran's influence among muslims.
Israel problem is that Israelis must withdraw from occupied territories without seeming to be defeated.
Please, I insist that the only valuable solution is to push at peace, not to justify retaliations for each side
As we see right now, the palestinian factions will be too busy to fight at each other for the power to think about fighting Israel, if Israel agrees on withdrawing from 95% of the occupied territories.
Stop fueling this too long conflict on which terrorists justify their actions. With a little more welfare, a large majority of the Palestinians will have hopes instead of despair.
The Arab governments that are so "concerned" about the Palestinians can spend their oil wealth and improve the lot of the average Palestinian. Palestinians can have schools and jobs right where they now live, but the Arab states want them constantly warring on Israel and dying instead.