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Lincoln
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Yes, It's always a good idea to wear a Canadian flag when traveling abroad. There are even some Americans who do it.
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Seeker
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London Ontario
Jan 1970
time: 00:27
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Here's an interesting 'watercooler' (or, in this case, coffee machine) argument we had last week.
Our staff (asylum?) is made up of mixed Amies, Canuckleheads, and Aussies.
Stacey, a Canadian, got a bunch of the 'patches' the stitch on Canadian flags for backpacks, also known as the International Please Don't Beat Me patch.
Wade, a Yank from Maryland, took a little offense to that and called Canadians 'cop out Americans' and said that by wearing the patch we were not being Canadian patriots, but anti-Americans since what it means is 'I'm NOT American', not 'I'm Canadian' for a lot of people.
Of course his mood wasn't helped by the other Americans wanting patches, but ya know.....
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Proteus_MST
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My opinions haven´t changed.
I still don´t support the war or the policies of George W. Bush.
The only thing that has changed is, that i´ve lowered my estimated for civilian casualties as a result of the Bombing Raids over Baghdad from "more than 100.000" to " maybe lower than 10.000", but this doesn´t include potential dvivilian casualties from street fightings on the ground or secondary civilian casualties (for example people having to drink non-potable water and dying from resulting diseases or Poisonings, because water purification plants were bombed or have no electricity), so I think the overall civilian casualties of the war might still exceed 100.000.
Last edited by Proteus_MST on 25-03-2003 at 20:17
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Demerzel
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quote:
Originally posted by Seeker
Stacey, a Canadian, got a bunch of the 'patches' the stitch on Canadian flags for backpacks, also known as the International Please Don't Beat Me patch.
Wade, a Yank from Maryland, took a little offense to that and called Canadians 'cop out Americans' and said that by wearing the patch we were not being Canadian patriots, but anti-Americans since what it means is 'I'm NOT American', not 'I'm Canadian' for a lot of people.
Of course his mood wasn't helped by the other Americans wanting patches, but ya know..... |
So for him, it's not alright for non-Americans to wear a Canadian flag patch because it's "Anti-American" but I suspect he'd be the kind of person who wears an American one because it's patriotic.
If so, he's an idiot.
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:27
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I read an interesting article in The Guardian written by an Iraqi living in Britain. It is one explanation about why Iraqis have not welcomed the US-Anglo invasion.
"It is now clear to everyone that ordinary Iraqis are resisting this military aggression with their lives and souls. Commentators and politicians in Britain and America seem taken aback: how come the Iraqis are putting up such a fight? Why do they so passionately resist this attempt to liberate them from the brutal dictator, Saddam? But Iraqis aren't surprised at all.
...
"Iraqis may wish for the current regime to change, but anyone who understands our culture will know that in this war Iraqis will fight and die, not to save President Saddam Hussein, but to protect their home, land, dignity and self-respect from a new world order alien to their way of life. We are an enormously proud people."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Stor...,921197,00.html
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:27
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quote:
Originally posted by Seeker
I must confess I am at heart a setimentalist and romantic....
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At heart, I think I'm a cynic and somewhere between a mix of Marcus Aurelius and Macchiavelli in my sentiments. 
Yes, my views have changed radically in two directions.
Initially, I thought this war was not too bad an idea, if done at the right time with the right forces - i.e. more forces, more international and arab world support.
I wasn't particularly concerned with the fate of the Iraqi people, although the US has it's hands dirty in that regard. We had and have bigger fish to fry, and there are a lot of people in a lot of shitty countries ruled by evil bastards.
Now that the war has started, we have no choice but to finish it decisively, so I support bringing it to a rapid, decisive conclusion, consistent with minimizing casualties.
That said, I support an extremity of aggressive action against the IRG and SRG and fedayeen forces - I'm not particularly interested in whether any of those last long enough to become prisoners. Iraq has had a long history of thugs, and the only way out of that is to wipe out the enforcers.
On the flip side, I'm more and more incensed at the chickenhawks - there have been unnecessary delays and casualties due to the insufficiency of force and insistence on adhering to an unrealistic timeline. We could have "given inspections more time" while using that excuse to get sufficient forces in place.
But that didn't matter, because a lot of this, and a lot of dead on both sides, are about some ball-less right wing ideologues like Wolfowitz, Perle and Armitage. They are of course too precious to serve in the military themselves, but such experts that they ignore the advice of spectacularly accomplished career professional soldiers and decide from reading a book they all liked that war is all different now, and there's a new style of fighting and all those naysayers are dinosaurs and know-nothings. Hello, honeybuns, there hasn't been a new way of fighthing ever. It all comes down to the same principles. So some chickenshits are going to cause unnecessary casualties trying to prove their philosophical points. And they've already lost, but they'll never admit it.
Personally, when this is done, I'd like to see Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle and Armitage dismissed from their posts. Actually, one advantage to Saddam's style of rule is that we could take these *******s and put 'em up against a wall and solve the problem that way.
Another thing that has changed in my view is that now that we've stepped into this mess (and we will kick Saddam's ass, in the end), we owe it to the Iraqi people to do it right. I've been reading about how US companies such as Halliburton (gee, what a coincidence) are being awarded contracts for various things in Iraq, but we're going to pay for them with Iraqi oil. WTFH???
We're going to invade you, break stuff in your country getting rid of that ******* ruler, kill some of you, but we're going to fix everything up for you. By awarding contracts to our companies and paying them with your resources.  If the Iraqis have to pay for rebuilding with their oil, then let an Iraqi interim government let those contracts to whoever they want - if it's the French, Russians and Chinese, so be it, if they're paying for it.
If we're going to give those contracts to American companies and give the Iraqis no say in it, then we should suck up the cost. We're going to spend 75 billion at least just on the military side of things, what's a few billion more - and it's not like the Iraqis won't need their oil revenue, they've been in a hole for two decades, owe reparations to Kuwait under UNSCRs, and owe a lot of foreign debt to boot. Once we decided to step in and dictate the outcome, our moral debt to the Iraqi people increased immensely.
So although I strongly support a war to which I was initially opposed (at least for the time being), I have a far lower regard for our civilian "leadership" than before.
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:27
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
My take is they don't like Hussein, but they like invaders even less. That's something I said long ago, but it seems to be true. |
They're used to invaders. It's got to be one of the two or three most invaded pieces of turf on the planet.
There's a couple of really big problems here - the US is not involving Iraqi expatriates, exiles and opposition figures to any degree at all, and we have completely failed to spell out in advance a vision for what we want to achieve in Iraq and the conditions under which we'll leave. Unfortunately, the US administration has a colonial view of the whole enterprise.
Most of the Iraqis are opposing us mostly out of fear, because they believe (and they're partly right, although the rebel leaders hosed us as well) that we hung them out to dry when they tried to get rid of Hussein 12 years ago. Tens of thousands of them paid with their lives, and their family members lives, and they remember well the lessons they were taught by Qusay Hussein and Taha Yahhin Ramadan. The simple fact is they fear us less, and they've been ruled by fear for decades. National pride can be addressed by working with the exile community and articulating a fair vision and an exit point from a future Iraq, but the only way we can address the fear issue is to break the Saddamites control of the country.
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KrazyHorse
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Macedonia
May 2001
time: 00:27
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Actually, I'm in near-total agreement with MtG, with two big exceptions:
First, I don't think that it was just the timing that was off on Iraq. I don't know if there was a worthwhile way to do this (I do know, however, that it hasn't been found by the Bush admin)
Secondly, I'll start to support the war once enough of the total cost has been paid (talking in terms of lives, since I really couldn't give a **** how many US dollars are wasted by their government's stupidity) that the remainder is less painful than leaving Saddam in would be. That's a while away, in my book. The diplomatic price has already been paid, in my opinion (the situation in the ME has been ****ed up beyond it's normal state already, and it's just a matter of time till we start to see it).
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25-03-2003 17:28
If I was in their shoes I'd probably say I loved him to until the all clear was given.
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