A Bit of Disturbing News

[IAMTHEEMPEROR]

Only in Iran can you watch weekly parades protesting The Great Satan (America) and learn how the Holocaust never happened. Sounds like a great place.

It just upsets me to see this semi-Cold War conflict going on. I have always liked to think of the modern day Russia as a changed nation than what it was. I've never disliked it, and I've thought of it as a friendly nation. It just upsets me to still see hostile anti-American oppinions in the modern day. I mean, I can understand why a lot of countries hate us, but I thought Russia would have gotten over it by now.

[Seniosh]

Ehh, well "By now" is only like... 10, 20 years after the cold war came to an "end". So it makes sense that there would still be residual hostilities.

The real shame would be if anger and a military arms race start up again, stoking the coals so to speak. The U.S. has been on fairly good diplomatic terms with Russia (compared to Cold War era), and it would be bad for that to stop.

As for nukes? They're political bargaining chips. I do not believe Russia would ever nuke somebody without extreme provocation, but it's still useful to have for political maneuvering. I'd expect nothing less from a powerful country, the U.S. included.

[MarcusAurelio]

Originally posted by IAMTHEEMPEROR
I've never disliked it, and I've thought of it as a friendly nation..

believe me , you've got that one wrong , and by a huge margin .

[FLESH]

Wtf? The people didn't decide to point a nuke at anyone, and I'm pretty sure the whole thing about pointing it anywhere was very mis-understood as well.

[Lady Nerevar]

It just upsets me to see this semi-Cold War conflict going on

boy, you must have no idea what the cold war was. its not "oh, we both have nukes and aren't too fond of each other, but oh well." its "our way is the only true way and the other country is evil, we must nuke them before they nuke us to ensure our survival." back in those days there was a very real threat of nuclear war, people had bomb drills every week (can you imagine hearing a siren over your town and being herded into a makeshift shelter, not knowing if you were going to die or if it was just another drill?) Russia and American hardly ever talked, and when they did it was to prevent war. America got itself caught up in unnecessary wars (Korea, Vietnam) and supported totalitarian regimes (south America, middle east, southeast Asia) just to prevent those countries from even thinking about communism. Russia wasent all peachy either, iron curtain and all. in short, this aint nothing.

It just upsets me to still see hostile anti-American oppinions in the modern day.

puhlease. yes, theres hostile anti-Americanism over there, hell its everywhere lately. but Americans have an even more distorted opinion of Russians and still view them as evil commie bastards in many cases. just take a look at holywood -- there are tons of movies that feature Russians as bad guys in post cold war times.

[blackbird]

I don't think russia is going to start a war against somebody, but yet doens't want to be weak. Poetin is perhaps a ruthless, cold and evil guy, but he's smart. I don't like the russian politics, but I think that especially america and muslim exterism is a much bigger threat for this world.
I think that russian imperialism is only reduced to those ex-russian states and especially Chechnya, where there is oil. Gazprom is even owned by the russian state.
America is much worse. Their aim is world domination (or at least being the most powerful nation in the world) and now there also aiming at countries with oil (the middle east region), by telling the the people that they will cleanse this world from evil dictators. There a lot of dictators in this world, which are not harmed by america or even supported. They (the CIA) even supported Bin laden or pinochet.

[DarkAsmodeous]

Ok, for starters, "America" doesn't asipre to anything.

But that issue aside, do you honestly believe that world domination is the goal?

[Siegfried]

Where is America fighting right now?

Afghanistan, because some crazy Mujahadeen decided to fly jets into their country and kill 3000 Americans. They overthrew them (though did not completely beat them), and put a friendly democracy in place.

Iraq. The US thought they had WMDs and wanted nukes. The CIA said they did, the British said they did, the Russians said they did, and about 5 other allies of our's said they did. Did they have WMDs? No. We did find though that Saddam spent 10 million dollars to buy nuclear secrets from North Korea.

Yeah, both of those sound like examples of the U.S. trying to dominate the world don't they? Sure, the U.S. wants to put friendly governments in place where they've toppled the old ones, but the simple reality is it's not physically possible for them to even attempt world domination. They're strapped for troops fighting in just Iraq and Afghanistan, it's logistically impossible to attempt a war of conquest. Proposing that the U.S. is out for world domination is quite frankly, idiocy.

Also about backing Bin Laden, interestingly enough, that was originally to use them to fight the Soviets in the 70's... just another brilliant idea that came from Jimmy Carter...

[FLESH]

I disagree with the attempt to set up friendly governments. One clear reason: they cannot do that after the amount of war and hate they have caused. One subtle reason: interfering it the way they have cannot be beneficial to a country. Just like giving a 3rd world country money will do fuck all good, instead what would really do good is to build a well in a poor village (small example).

[Siegfried]

Whether or not the US will be able to establish a friendly government that can last is yet to be seen. It does not change the goal however, of establishing them in the first place.

Originally posted by FLESH
One clear reason: they cannot do that after the amount of war and hate they have caused. One subtle reason: interfering it the way they have cannot be beneficial to a country. Just like giving a 3rd world country money will do gosh all good, instead what would really do good is to build a well in a poor village (small example).

I'm not quite sure if this is exactly what you're trying to say, but if you're proposing that the U.S. were to give money to Iraq and Afghanistan (while leaving the terrorist government in place), that would only make the problem worse. In Afghanistan, the Taliban (who ran the country) sheltered and supported Al Qaeda, who attacked the US in the first place. That money would never make it to the people of the Afghanistan, it would only go to fund the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

And with Iraq, I can only say this, remember that little UN program called "oil for food" that was meant to feed the people of Iraq? Yeah, well it didn't, it just helped Saddam and a bunch of corrupt UN bureaucrats to get even more wealthy.