Posted on 10/08/2002 12:10:32 AM PDT by Greybird
There's plenty of international law to deal with nonproliferation which we followed in North Korea. If we followed it with Iraq, the sanctions would have lifted long ago. The attack on Iraq makes more sense than an attack on North Korea (a country that has starved hundreds of thousands of its people) because we have oil interests in the Middle East and Iraq is militarily weaker and has weaker friends than North Korea.
What are the leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bosnia if not local stooges? We can apply all the rhetoric of getting in, installing democracy, and getting out that we want but our two enemies, radical islam and nationalism are not going to sit back and let us do that in any of those places. In Bosnia and Kosovo we went in to smash Serbian nationalists and ended up supporting our Muslim enemies. In Iraq we are pretending to smash the Muslims and will end up supporting Kurdish nationalists who will then have to be suppressed by Muslim countries (e.g. Turkey) who will end up taking over Iraqi oil fields and become too strong themselves.
Americans are naturally reluctant to build empires but our leaders have taken us into one war after another in the name of democracy over this century. The wars always seems justified until you look at our allies like Stalin, Saddam, and Osama Bin Laden and realize we are just sowing the seeds for the next crisis.
Conquer? What is your definition of "conquer"? I tend to lean towards liberate. Conquering, to me, means to put some minion in power that is a puppet for the conquering force. Karzai seems hardly like a puppet with his constant bitching about us moving our focus from Afghanistan.
Regards, Ivan
Exactly so. The historical experiences of immigrants to the US are remarkably similar, regardless of where they are actually from. Whether it was Germans in the 1830's, Chinese in the 1880's, Irish and Italians in the 1890's, the pattern is always the same. The first generation remains almost entirely unassimilated, reconstructing the culture of their former homes in segregated communities, and learning little to no English, for the most part. The second generation is almost invariably fluently bilingual, and moves with ease and comfort between the old country society of their parents and the society of mainstream America. And the third generation is almost entirely assimilated - knowledge of the languages of their grandparents is usually rudimentary at best, and often non-existent altogether. Culturally speaking, the third generation is almost indistinguishable from the rest of society, retaining some vague ethnic awareness, channeled into socially acceptable forms - pride in one's heritage, ethnic festivals, and the like.
Eventually, some of the customs of Hispanic immigrants will just be a part of the larger social fabric. We've managed to survive having Italian-Americans celebrate their heritage on Columbus Day and Irish-Americans celebrating their heritage on St. Pat's Day - I think we'll survive if we throw Cinco de Mayo into the mix ;)
I don't think you live where most of them are coming ---in many parts of the US you won't find them learning English all that quickly. Here we have people who've lived here over 20 years that can't/won't speak English at all. They don't have to anymore, everything is being switched over to Spanish for them. One third of the people here speak no English.
What about their kids? Their grandkids?
The first generation almost never assimilates. I'm of Irish, German, and Swedish ancestry--my grandmother was the last one in the family to know any Swedish (and not MUCH Swedish at that), what German I've learned came from taking a year of same in high school, and I don't know a lick of Gaelic.
Surely you jest.
Iraq has the third largest standing army in the world and some of the best (or worst depending on perspective)military hardware money can buy. They are far superior to Korea militarily with the exception of possible nukes. Iraq more than makes up for that lack with biological weapons. Further what makes you think that Korea has any different friends than Iraq? Have you noticed the sales of radar systems and anti-aircraft missles to Iraq from China? (Ironically it appears that Isreal sold the missle technology to China in the first place) It's not as if we are picking on the weak kid on the block to get cheap oil!
Excuse me...
You're saying that is not what's happening in Afghanistan?
Stopped reading right there at this oxymoron.
There's a difference between "going in for Iraq's oil" which is what the leftists charge, and going in to protect our Mideast interests in general.
Firstly, our native population is replacing itself at a greater rate than you suspect.Our "native" population has wavered at replacement rate for decades. Virtually all anticipated real growth is due to the influx of Mexican immigrants. The future statistics for Kali offer a striking similarity to Kosovo.
I saw this out in Los Angeles and El Paso on my way to California. All the business signs were in English.You were not in EAST LA. 20 years ago, every sign in East LA was en espanól. Next time you're in LA, find the Bonaventure Hotel and head due East. I guarantee you will soon find yourself a stranger in a strange land. If that doesn't work, ask for directions to Pacoima. (Bring your Kevlar.)
Ditto. Imperialism is the imposition of government, not the imposition of order. Afganistan is a case in point. Karzai is setting up their government. The US is merely making sure he has the chance to succeed.
These grapes are as sour as green persimmon wine.
My heritage is German/Irish. I had to go back to my great-grandfather/great-grandmother to get any Gaelic/Irish. My great-grandmother could still remember her German but never used it anymore by the time that I was around.
I took four years of high school German and two years of college German and it was just enough to get me into deep kimchi when I was stationed in Germany.
I could, in general terms, ask directions to the streetcar stops, the train station, some of the larger stores, and order off a German menu. When I actually tried talking to the Germans, I got my head handed to me on a platter.
8')
No Doug, it's not over. It's just starting!
>>>Now I wonder if it'll last the decade.
Stop wondering. It will outlast you, your children, your childrens children and so on and so forth.
Stop being so damn pessimistic, Greybird and a grab a new screen name. Make it "Redwhiteandbluebird".
Get a life!
A little optimism goes a long way. Geez.
Explanation 1: Because previous immigrants assimilated, it was seen as certain that new immigrants would, therefor laws and cultural attitudes that existed to make people assimilate where destroyed: they where seen as something racist once the knowledge of their relevance to assimilation had gone lost, whit out laws and cultural attitudes to ensure assimilation, balkanize of these nations where unavoidable.
Explanation 2: The new immigrants come from non Christian and/or European cultures and the potential for assimilation into Christian/European civilizations is limit to individuals from Christian/European civilizations.
One?, the other?, both?, neither?. /Shakespeare
I personally know a number of conservative scholars at universities (I used to be one).Few NATO nations make France look like a military juggernaut, either in attitude or hardware, but Canada does.
France has the third or fourth most powerful armed forces on the planet. They're not particularly projectible, but, as Charles de Gaulle once asked, "why do we [the French] need ICBMs to hit Dusseldorf?" At this point, they easily have the strongest military in Europe, after us.
"This is not a fringe theory. It comes from within the United States, from respected political scientists on the Ivy League campuses."
Hey buddy (writer), "political scientists" on Ivy League campuses is the very bleeding definition of FRINGE THEORY!!!!!
Moron.
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