http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993016

they are making a whole new breed of nuke, that digs down then explodes. it kicks up lots and lots (not the intention, though) of radioactive dirt.

the hipocrisy of the united states (in everything) over nuclear weapons is massive. they are the only country in the world to have used one in anger (and they droppped two) and they become the world deciders on who is allowed them. when did the united states get the exclusive right to own nukes? america is the most dangerous (internationally) country in the world at the moment, killing millions around the globe, directly and indirectly. they crap on about how iraq and north korea have nukes (then try and flog off the missile defence system to japan, who said shove it) then they announce that they are making more effective nukes themselves.

the whole mutual assured destruction thing doesn't work when those who fire the nukes are the ones who are least likely to get killed. a nuke hits your town, i bet while your being burnt into your component elements, the last thing on your mind is 'at least they get this too'. just another thought, the biggest people threat in the world today comes internally, or from people with no home country. a nuke cannot stop someone on a plane with a stanley knife, nor can it stop guerrila fighters. they are useless unless used against modernised cities, the exact type of people that the US claims to never want to attack.

what gives the US the exclusive right to defend itself, while other countries get the shit kicked out of them if the US is even suspicious of them doing the same.

The first thing I should mention is that the "bunker busters" that you are refering too are babies compared to the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Their is fallout yes, but not to the extreme levels that you are probably thinking or should be worried about.

The United States is not hypocritical. The bombs dropped on Japan were entirely justified. It would have cost more lives to invade the island by force than to drop two atom bombs on the cities.

The United States is responsible with their nukes, so is the UK. Democratic countries tend to be relatively stable compared to the dictatorships that we are dealing with. Saddam is dangerous, so is North Korea. They are still volatile, militaristic regimes and are not to be trusted.

America is responsible for killing millions around the globe? This part has a lot of words but does not mean a lot. Are you referring to the war on terror? If so, you realize that the terrorists hide amongst the civilians for protection and bet on the fact that the West is reluctant to hit civilain targets. Civilian casualties are kept to a minimum where ever possible.

If you are refering to economic sanctions, why should we be forced to trade with our enemies. Why should we let billions of dollars flow into Iraq when the leader is proven to be a corrupt individual who spends all of the oil money on palaces and weapons. If you truly don't want to see violence in the world, then economic measures are the way to effect change in the world.

MAD does work. Most leaders of the world tend to enjoy living. They know that if they nuke the US, UK, France, or any of our other allies, that we will counter-nuke, and they will die. Most dictators are pimping the populous for their enjoyment and they do not want to die. In this case MAD works. MAD breaks down when you are dealing with terrorsit groups who are not afraid of death. The real fear is that Saddam will give one of these weapons to a terrorist group and they will then use it on the US, UK, France or one of our allies. MAD also fails when one side has nukes and the other doesn't. This can easily be seen in the conflict between India and Pakistan. If Iraq is allowed to gain this advantage in the Middle East, it will have an effective tool with which to blackmail their neighbors.

The US is pursuing their interests and the interests of the West. It is not in anyones best interests to allow Iraq or Norht Korea to obtain nuclear weapons. Your whole post attempts to claim moral relevancy when their is nothing relevant about it.

What country has gotten their ass kicked by the US based on suspicion? Who? Cmon, fuckin tell me.

Your an idiot. We can develop whatever we want. We will not use it unless we have to. What problem do you have with that? Well, you are just another dumbfuck who hates America. That is the problem.

You must realize, however, that this is just to scare Saddam. We develop it and Saddam trembles. I mean, we discuss military action on national news and Saddam pisses his pants. Face it, it is a threat tactic that works.

[This message has been edited by buttthrax (edited 11-17-2002).]

i agree with butthrax that saddam dos piss his pants but still doesnt prove that america r good infact all evidence today proves the usa govt is the most evil, they have double standards (eg. iraq and korea they wanna bomb iraq but not korea but korea HAS nukes while iraq doesnt, its because iraq has OIL and america wants it )

America should shut up and stop bombin ppl . and butthrax and nuke child u should stop watching CNN for a while and watch news in other languages and from different parts of the world (it might open ur little brains up 2 wats happpening around the world and gives u different views about these issues)

Laterz

quote:

---

Originally posted by RAOVQ:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993016

they are making a whole new breed of nuke, that digs down then explodes.

---

The article in the link begins: "The US government is set to fund research into a new type of nuclear weapon...", and it�s dated Nov 7 2002.

And you say they have already started making said weapons. Wow, they are fast!

quote:

---

they are the only country in the world to have used one in anger (and they droppped two)

---

Yes, USA put an end to the Japanese part of WW 2, after Japan had tried to conquer most of the far east, killing vast amounts of people. On top of this they also attacked USA.

And you claim that USA "used one in anger", implying that the US government was somehow unprovoked, or that their retaliation was out of proportion, and/or out of control?!

It was of course a disaster for Japan the people who died and got injured. Still, the numbers of people killed were 118.661 in Hiroshima and 73.884 in Nagasaki. About 150.000 got injured, all in all. Compared to the 6 million people Japan killed between 1936 and 1945, a little less than 200.000 people is not very much. And japan were not ready with their war. They would have gone on, seemingly until they were out of an army, or out of a people.

From this you can also see that nuclear weapons is not needed to kill vast amounts of people.

quote:

---

america is the most dangerous (internationally) country in the world at the moment, killing millions around the globe, directly and indirectly.

---

When you claim things like this, you must substantiate it with facts.

Locations, dates, approximate number of people killed, etc.

As you also claim it to be "directly and indirectly", you must state wich is wich.

I know of one recent, direct, action by the US army. The attack on Afghanistan. I don�t know how many were killed, but it was less than 100.000, I�m sure.

Give me proof of another 900.000, directly and indericly killed by USA, recently, and I will call the qoute above an excaggeration. Right now I call it a blatant lie!

quote:

---

then they announce that they are making more effective nukes themselves.

---

If you still refer to the weapons mentioned in the link, it says that they "are set to fund research".

quote:

---

the whole mutual assured destruction thing doesn't work when those who fire the nukes are the ones who are least likely to get killed. a nuke hits your town, i bet while your being burnt into your component elements, the last thing on your mind is 'at least they get this too'. just another thought, the biggest people threat in the world today comes internally, or from people with no home country. a nuke cannot stop someone on a plane with a stanley knife, nor can it stop guerrila fighters. they are useless unless used against modernised cities, the exact type of people that the US claims to never want to attack.

---

You have a lot of valid and good points here, and some food for thought on top of that. I agree with a lot of the reasoning, such as the questionable use of nuclear weapons for the kinds of threats and wars that seems to lie ahead.

quote:

---

what gives the US the exclusive right to defend itself, while other countries get the shit kicked out of them if the US is even suspicious of them doing the same.

---

Here we go again. What countries, except for Iraq, are at the moment under threat to get "the shit kicked out of them for defending themselves".

A list of names of the countries you refer to, please.

You can also include a list of past incidents, when the US has "kicked the shit" out of a country for attempting to defend itself (in general, I assume you mean).

FoxLeonard

Once again, please do us the service of disapperance.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Blue-Rock:
America should shut up and stop bombin ppl .

---

Ok, asscraker, who are we bombin? Who, goddammitt? Either respond or disappear.

quote:

---

and butthrax and nuke child u should stop watching CNN for a while and watch news in other languages and from different parts of the world (it might open ur little brains up 2 wats happpening around the world and gives u different views about these issues)

Laterz

---

Why? Your an idiot. I dont watch CNN. If I get news from TV it is from FOX. But thats beside the point. I watch the Spanish channels because they have hot women.

Please disappear.

[This message has been edited by buttthrax (edited 11-17-2002).]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Blue-Rock:
all evidence today proves the usa govt is the most evil, they have double standards

---

"All evidence" you say. Then it includes US evidence; CNN evidence; UN evidence; SIPRI evidence, investigations made by experts on terrorism, and so forth, I assume?!

Or do you perhaps exclude some evidence before the evaluation? Evidence you know to be lies, for example? It�s no use to examine evidence you know is falsified, is there?

Just asking...

quote:

---

(eg. iraq and korea they wanna bomb iraq but not korea but korea HAS nukes while iraq doesnt, its because iraq has OIL and america wants it )

---

North Korea (there is at the moment no country called Korea, but half of what was called Korea wishes for a reunion) did themselves declare, in the UN, that they have nuclear weapons. they also declared that they will cooperate in the future. At the moment the UN has decided to rely on North Korea.

You know more about Iraq�s military secrets than most people outside of Iraq - and inside as well. Could you show me some valid proof that Iraq doesn�t have nuclear weapons, or are not trying to develop them, or other kinds of weapons of mass destruction.

quote:

---

. and butthrax and nuke child u should stop watching CNN for a while and watch news in other languages and from different parts of the world (it might open ur little brains up 2 wats happpening around the world and gives u different views about these issues)

---

Then I assume that you watch CNN, and/or other western world news media, to get the "different views" you rightly claim to be important.

Or is it so that "different views" to you excludes the US perpective, as well as media that seem to agree with USA?!



[This message has been edited by FoxLeonard (edited 11-17-2002).]

quote:

---

Originally posted by buttthrax:

I dont watch CNN. If I get news from TV it is from FOX.

---

Well, thank you! I�m flattered and glad to be at your service!

FoxLeonard

[This message has been edited by FoxLeonard (edited 11-17-2002).]

"Locations, dates, approximate number of people killed, etc."
bit unreasonable, no one is counting.
list of direct killings
or, here is a list of places on the reciving end of american subversion or assults
China (1945-60s)
Italy (1947-48)
Greece (1947-50s)
The Philippines (1940s and 50s)
Korea (1945-53)
Albania (1949-53)
Eastern Europe (1948-56)
Germany (1950s)
Iran (1953)
Guatemala (1953-54)
Costa Rica (mid-1950s)
Syria (1956-57)
The Middle East (1957-58)
Indonesia (1957-58)
Western Europe (1950s and 1960s)
British Guiana (1953-64)
Soviet Union (late 1940s to 1960s)
Italy (1950s to 1970s)
Vietnam (1950-73)
Cambodia (1955-73)
Laos (1957-73)
Haiti (1959-63)
Guatemala (1960)
France/Algeria (1960s)
Ecuador (1960-63)
The Congo (1960-64)
Brazil (1961-64)
Peru (1960-65)
Dominican Republic (1960-66)
Cuba (1959 to 1980s)
Indonesia (1965)
Ghana (1966)
Uruguay (1964-70)
Chile (1964-73)
Greece (1964-74)
Bolivia (1964-75)
Guatemala (1962 to 1980s)
Costa Rica (1970-71)
Iraq (1972-75)
Australia (1973-75)
East Timor (1975)
Angola (1975 to 1980s)
Zaire (1975-78)
Jamaica (1976-80)
Seychelles (1979-81)
Grenada (1979-84)
Morocco (1983)
Suriname (1982-84)
Libya (1981-1989)
Nicaragua (1981-90)
Panama (1969-91)
Bulgaria (1990)
Iraq (1990-91)
Afghanistan (1979-92)
El Salvador (1980-94)
Haiti (1986-94)
impressive eh?


heres some puppet regimes killing under american assistance and/or support, although they habbit of morphing out of control and killing everyone, which the US is at least partly to blame.
Tiburcio Andino (Honduras)
Carlos Castillo Armas (Guatemala)
Fulgencio Batista (Cuba)
Ngo Dinh Diem (Vietnam)
"Papa Doc" Duvalier (Haiti)
King Fahd (Saudi Arabia)
King Hussein (Jordan)
Saddam Hussein (Iraq)
Chiang Kai-shek (China)
Ferdinand Marcos (Phillippines)
Joseph D�sir� Mobutu (Congo/Zaire) (recently ousted!)
Manuel Noriega (Panama)
Mohammed Riza Pahlavi (the Shah of Iran)
The Somoza Family (Nicaragua)
Suharto (Indonesia)
Rafael Trujillo Molina (Dominican Republic)

then we have the results when america pulls the plug from these things, like the estimated 2 million dead from sanctions on iraq, and other penalties that are faced by the people from the result of runaway dictators.

then we have more indirect things, like the WTO (americas ligitiment cover enterprise) actions, like upholding US copyrights for drugs when people are preventibly dieing(like aids drugs in africa), its unresposible lending that allows dictators all thay want, then makes the countries pay for them for decades after, and its enforced budget cuts on health and social services if a country can't pay back loans (which have massive tolls on comunities, as well as setting the scene for conflicts).

im not even going to include assasinations, and the effects those have.


i suppose someone could tally up approximate deaths if you wanted, but there is no way to disagree that it has killed more international citizens than any other country (these are all post 1945), that makes it in my opinion, the most dangerous country. some might be justified, some might not be, some might be mistakes, its beside the point.

So what. Most of those places don't even belong on the list.

The puppet government part is equally nuts as we have already gone over the static vs. dynamic history.

Sanctions are better than war. If a country does something "bad," the international community has the right to ostracise them and refuse to trade with them.

US patents should be upheld. Without the gurantee of intelectual property, why would anyone want to research or invent when some pirate will rip off their invention and make millions of their hard work? Africa is not entitled to drugs. No industry, especially pharmecuticals, is required to give away their product just becuase someone really needs it. That hole idea of yours kills the incentive to create. Why should I go through the hell of making a drug and getting it through the FDA when the moment it is realeased, society will attempt to claim it as theirs and then vilianize me becuase I charge for it.

The part on lending is equally bad. You claim the villany of the banks and simultaneously ignore the corruption of the dictators. Banks are there to lend money and collect it. The leaders are the ones who are in charge and they are the ones who decide whether the loan is a good or bad decision. To be honest, their social programs would be better if they privatized them, but that in itself will lead to a whole seperate fight.

References to the source of RAVQ�s list above.

A short biography about the author: www.zmag.org/ForeignPol/aboutblum.htm

His homepage http://members.aol.com/bblum6/American_holocaust.htm

FoxLeonard


[This message has been edited by FoxLeonard (edited 11-17-2002).]

"So what."

good one. you really showed me there.

"That hole idea of yours kills the incentive to create."
i think the incentive to create comes a very distant second to saving tens of millions of lifes. have you seen the profits that pharm companies make anyway? they can afford a to sell a few batches at cost.

"international community"
by that you mean the US wielding WTO power and manipulating other countries until they agree. like currently, australia is supporting americas iraq stance in the hope for a free trade deal.

but as i said, motives are irrelevant. everyone can justify everything, if they want, the point is the peoples lives destroyed by americas actions. you get oil, or trade, they get a repressive government that plunders their country for decades, and leaves damage that takes decades (if their lucky) to repair. you might think its a fair deal, but that is the classic american attitude. "So what."

i think whats needed here is a little compassion.
that gives me an idea (new thread)

fox, im not sure if thats meant to discredit him or what, but the author is irrelevant when the facts are unbiased and true. they are not judgments (except for my bits).

The above list has been posted here before, and been ripped apart by people that know far more than us.

Half of those don't even belong on there.

RAOVQ!

Thank�s for presenting yor facts. A lot of people don�t find that necesseary, for some reason.

You will also have to excuse me for a slight misunderstanding.

When I read this:

quote:

---

Originally posted by RAOVQ:
america is the most dangerous (internationally) country in the world at the moment, killing millions around the globe, directly and indirectly.

---

I took it to mean literally what it says. That what you say is going on right now (in the very recent past), to that extent. That�s why I got surprised, to say the least, and accused you of lying. The accusation is withdrawn, and I hope you accept my apology.

To my knowledge, your source is far from undisputed. He is by some ranked along side with Noam Chomsky et al. Authors who are highly biased against USA. This is not to say that he can�t have his listings right. I�ll do my best to check that.

Right now I can say that some of what is listed are highly questionable actions, and some are even worse. But even those took place in a context...

A big part of the list refers to actions taken during the Cold War. A war that was not very cold at all. USA and the Soviet Union fought their war in "portions", using other countries as their battlefields. They constantly provoked eachother and forced eachother to make impossible choices between despicable actions.

It must also be said that the Soviet Union had real imperialist ambitions. Stalin would have made the whole of Europe a part of the union right at the end of WW 2, if it hadn�t been for USA.

Had the Soviets conquered Europe in 1945, they would have continued with the rest of the Eurasian continent, and then the world.
As it now came to be, they did their attempts, but USA managed to keep them at bay, and to continously keep them away from western Europe.

This threat, remained up until the late 1970s, when the Soviets were forced to literally go bankrupt in their attempts to win the war in Afghanistan. A war that was the last battle of the Cold War. The battle that made the Soviets lose the Cold War. Even if it took another year or so before the empire fell apart. The slave states were free, after more than 50 years opression, and the Russian people could start thinking about freedom and democracy for the very first time in Russia�s/Soviet�s/Russia�s history.

This is a simplification, of course. But it is an important part of the context for all actions in the list, that are dated between 1945 and 1990.

I�m not trying to do a whitewash of USA. But I don�t like the demonization. Neither do I like the simplifications, that seems to go out from the assumption that USA has always been free to act as USA chooses to act, in the best interest of USA and nothing else. If they had been that free to act, they would have had no reason to act at all, as they would already have ruled the world.

FoxLeonard

[This message has been edited by FoxLeonard (edited 11-17-2002).]

well, no one should accept any information on face value, but there is little reason to doubt most in the list. i am a little surprised to find Australia (1973-75) on the list. i know that we had american agents doing something nasty here, but i never quite got what. now im going to find out. beside the point though.

yes, alot of this was battling the soviets and the spread of communism (although i never understood why america was so affrid of communism, it takes a revolution to start, and america does not have the climate for it) so it took them all over the world. there is no size of the intervention, like Germany (1950s) had many political assasinations carried out, but the australia one is obviously relativley minor.

i am not trying to demonise america, and i was actually very shocked by the fierce attacks that the original post recieved. some might be some nationalism coming through. i think that the degree of emotion that people have when talking about thier own country is counter-productive. there is nothing wrong with being wrong (provided you can see why) and alot of posts (like this one) are designed to test the waters. getting offended or emotional just destroys your arguments, as many people will not respond with reason to someone being unneccesarily aggressive.


"You claim the villany of the banks and simultaneously ignore the corruption of the dictators."
yes, but no one is defending the dictators, they come and go, it is taken for granted that dictators are bad, but the WTO is very quick to hand out cash. there is some country in africa, who had some pretty evil dudes in control (that is about all of them) and racked up huge debts with the WTO, that the country cannot pay, even though they were ousted. as a result, they face teh wrath of the WTO in full swing, which are long-term counter productive. can't think of the name though.

quote:

---

Originally posted by RAOVQ:
. they are the only country in the world to have used one in anger

---

Let me see... Japan, (also enemy of Oz bombed a place called Darwin as I recall). Nuke. 1945. Ended a war. 57 years ago. Your point?

Nox

quote:

---

Originally posted by Blue-Rock:
and butthrax and nuke child u should stop watching CNN for a while and watch news in other languages and from different parts of the world (it might open ur little brains up 2 wats happpening around the world and gives u different views about these issues)

---

GREAT IDEA! And you should START watching CNN. Your pablum diet of al-Jazeera is showing.

Nox

RAOVQ!

I realize I have to put some kind of disclaimer here:

This is not really a reply to you. This is more of an essay (a better word for rant), in part inpired by the quoted post from you.

quote:

---

Originally posted by RAOVQ:
well, no one should accept any information on face value, but there is little reason to doubt most in the list.

---

Perhaps. What preying mantis states above is the opposite; that the list is in error, to the extent that it was "ripped apart" last time it was posted.

I made a short visit to the list in your link, and found a lot of the basis for the now so common claims that "USA is evil"; i.e. the rethorics used by Chomsky et al.

I found a summary of the US part of the war in Afghanistan, so far from the whole truth in its simplification and bias, that my summary of the Cold War, in my earlier post, looks scholary in comparision.

I visited the pages behind and stumbled over a piece about Yugoslavia and the (alleged) crimes of war there, committed by NATO. Without going into details; at the end he has to come up with the conspiranoid accusation that the special court in den Haag (the Hague) is payed for by the US, and because of that no US soldiers could ever be prosecuted there.
Since then a group of Dutch soldiers have been prosecuted, for the crimes of war that William Blum persists in blaming the USA for. In an interview he seems to vaugely agree on Chomsky�s rediculous claim that the Soviet Union wasn�t socialist at all. Even Marx himself finally aknowledged that socialism without democracy; i.e. Communism, requires grave opression to "work" in reality. Chomsky et al persist in distorting this, for the sole purpose of making their accusations against the US more powerful.

I could go on, but I hope these examples are enough to indicate that my worries are substantiated, and that preying mantis is not only right about what happened; but that it probably happened because the list is in error.

And this is not to accuse you of presenting the wrong list. All information has to be evaluated. I�m merely taking the oportunity to point that out, and not only to you.

quote:

---

yes, alot of this was battling the soviets and the spread of communism (although i never understood why america was so affrid of communism, it takes a revolution to start, and america does not have the climate for it)

---

Perhaps it is true that communism needs a revolution to get started. But the soviet Union was powerful and big enough to force communism upon others, and thereby widening its empire.

The US fear was to some extent paranoia, but then we must also aknowledge that Communism was, and is, the very opposite of democracy and freedom, on all accounts. Communism in practice is a total contradiction to the US constitution, so to speak.

quote:

---

there is no size of the intervention, like Germany (1950s) had many political assasinations carried out,

---

Yes, the CIA et al killed a lot of people in Eastern and also Western Germany, and so did the KGB. They were at war...

quote:

---

i am not trying to demonise america, and i was actually very shocked by the fierce attacks that the original post recieved.

---

No, for most of the time you�re avoiding the accusations of evil, and similar things. But to some extent you use the same rhetorics as Blue-Rock (if you excuse the insult, for the sake of argument). And when you do that, you�re not only coming under fierce attacks, but for all the wrong reasons.

Look at this topic. It was supposed to be about the threat of the new kind of nuclear weapons the US are about to fund research on. Since then we have discussed anything but said weapon, because you couln�t stay away from some rhetorical swings at USA.
Admittedly better swings than Blue-Rock�s and others� punch-drunk slugging. But you nevertheless managed to hide your initial message behind your, in this topic, unnecessary claims about other things.

quote:

---

some might be some nationalism coming through. i think that the degree of emotion that people have when talking about thier own country is counter-productive.

---

I was one of the first to attack you, if not in rage. And I hope you by now know that I�m from Sweden (so you�re not doing the same mistake about me as young Mr Stone
did, assuming I must be US American because I defend USA)

quote:

---

there is nothing wrong with being wrong (provided you can see why) and alot of posts (like this one) are designed to test the waters. getting offended or emotional just destroys your arguments, as many people will not respond with reason to someone being unneccesarily aggressive.

---

I agree, to some extent. Had totse been a "real" place, where we met eye to eye and debated politics, I would have agreed all the way through. As it is now, we can not get instant feedback. I can�t check the expression of your face. I can�t interrupt and make you repeat when you happen to mumble (yes, mumbling in writing is possible).

It is therefore important to try to keep the topic as narrow as possible, at the very least in the initial post. To add "the usual clich�s", such as USA�s alleged imperialism, is to make all topics look the same.

We are sometimes repeating ourselves until our key-boards are beaten into dust. From time to time we perform a well rehearsed ritual, instead of partaking in a discussion or a debate...

FoxLeonard

The problem with the list above is that the author has taken every country since 1945 that the americans have had any dealings with, regardles of the fact this may range from agants assasinating someone to a full scale war.

A similar sized list could be drawn up for the Israelis, or the Russians, or the British, or any number of countries.