Re: OT: Canada Agrees to be Missile Target

In article <3e0peiFjkcqU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Paul Burke <paul@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> John S. Dyson wrote:
>
>>
>> Historically (and even today), Europe, for example, is noted
>> to be a source of incredibly incompetent and emotionally driven wars.
>> Was it prudent to 'save' Europe when they would likely be impossible to
>> save?
>
> I wouldn't really call disliking being invaded by Nazis emotional.
>
Are you really that silly as to believe that the Nazis weren't partially
emotionally driven? It is very interesting how you ignore part of the
cause (emotion), and only look at the victims (who aren't directly the
cause this time.) It sure was obvious that the hatred and fervor of
the German public was very effectively genned up. (WWI resulted from
pure emotion and hotheadedness also.) Note that the causes for WORLD
WARS result from European behaviors. -- THE EUROPEANS ARE VICTIMS OF
THEMSELVES, but we are all potentially affected by the European
and ethical incompetency.

Back in the day when the US had its few colonial adventures, the Europeans
were totally screwing up Iraq/Iran, etc for the US to help to clean up today.
Back in the day when the US was trying to deal with the native american
issues, human rights in England for working class English people were
incredibly bad. People in Europe might try to criticize the 19th century
American nation, but their own fully established nations were hellholes and
full of hopeless people almost equivalent to Mexico today. Where the US
did have slavery for many years after it was disposed of elsewhere, that
slavery was being supported by many European nations. It required the
temporary devolution of the US to undo the externally supported damage
against our country. When the US did take the Phillipines (and did end
up being better than it was European controlled), that was near the
timeframe that European nations were trying to continue to opium addict
the Chinese.

>
> But in the USA's short history, they haven't done too badly for wars-
> excluding the two WWs,
>
Again, much of the reasoning for US wars has been defense and viability.
Even this anti-islamist (not islmaic) movement is defense, and the
cause is emotional (the islamist hatemongering/superiority complex side.)
Admittedly, the cold-war caused some bad behavior, but France is still
actively supporting despots* (e.g. Saddam, Arafat, Mugabe etc) even to the
dismay of the US. France is in a cold war against the US, and the US doesn't
really admit that yet.

Even now, where the US populace is just barely realizing it, the effect on
trade with France is significant (but not really enough to let the French
understand.) My guess would be a large part (perhaps 1/2) of the American
deaths in Iraq are due to the belief in radical/Islamist/Baathist circles
that their cause is being supported by the French and others in Europe.
Oddly enough, even though the French do love Saddam very much, they are
also incompetently trying to suppress the Islamic people in France (trying
to partially undress Islamic girls in schools), their government has
been supporting many Islamist and/or Baathist forces which have tried to
damage the US.

* When noting the French support of despots, please note that such support
is purely optional, where the support of people like Saddam is for money
and not national survival. On the other hand, the US still does have good
relations with SOME despots (e.g. Saudi), but their situation is slowly
improving, and the Saudi oil is critical for the European economies. AFAIR,
the US gets very little oil from Saudi, but I guess it is true that there
is still American self interest in Europe getting the Saudi oil.

So, if you look at the French viewpoint, it is very clear that they see
the tyrants like Saddam as being their friends, Islamists as being 'bad',
but the US as being 'worst.' Of course, that French view is logically absurd
and is pure emotion as being genned up by the European press. This sure
does make Europe vulnerable to one of another disasterous war with a country
that only wants to be a friend.

(If you look at the 'veil' issues in the US, the only real issue here is
the impediment to identification on official ids. I haven't really seen
an attempt for official US policy to undress little Islamic girls in US
schools.)

John
.