and this is the typical americanistic point of view have you ever experienced even a single system different from democracy to state so definitely all of them allow no freedom? Moreover: Have you ever given more thought to the ways YOU are kept unfree in your free country? I guess you earn 1000$ or more a month, dont you?
Whilst I dont agree with heartc, what I would say is that there is a greater sense of freedom in a democracy than in any other system of government imo. -glas-
wulfie this isn't a gay porn board... and apart from that, Grobar it might be true that it sounds rather Americanistic when Heartc says that democracy is the only way to experience/maintain freedom... but if you compare the different political systems, you can see that democracy is the one that's surviving the longest, and that is not without a reason... In here we enjoy the liberties a democracy has to offer, and Bulgaria did try to get out from under the Soviet imposed dictatorship to establish a democracy...? Sometimes democracy fails, and what Bush is doing is under no circumstances democratic... freedom is relative, absolute freedom is inexistant, and if it would exist it is not timeless, sooner or later the one - whose freedom is being cut back to maintain the absolute freedom of the other - will revolt... greetze, Zembla
it starts to get interesting its good you have learnt the lesson then we learnt it earlier well, its exactly why they forbade your army to occupy. it is once they thought to prevent suffery. but dont worry, french troops did their job, as well. We had an epidemics of "french disease" (syphilis) and what so much have we done to you? Ferdinand wanted the demolition of the Serbian state, but Austria didnt agree on that. They say 14% of serbian population perished from famine, but 1. im not quite sure if this is in the bulgarian occupied zone (Macedonia + Bulgarian Morava), where anyway lived mostly bulgarians and not serbians -at the time- and the government was willing to portray itself as liberators (but there were indeed problems from individual officials who would abuse their position to make profit, not unusual in any other part of the coutry, nor I believe in peace-time Serbia? ) 2. in the later years situation was so bad I remember an instance when 100 soldiers *on the front* would receive 14 loafs of bread a day. No wonder if the occupied population received no food at all. Frankly there is not much written about the happenings for the civil population during the war, and this is very sad. All books Ive seen so far are concerned with the course of the diplomacy of war and the military campaigns. really? i havent heard about that. BTW I was reading the memories of Svetoslav Krakov (no time to finish them now ). have you read them? How exactly? Serbia`s main interest has always been not to have a rival in grabbing from the Ottoman legacy (a territory on which we lived). I dont remember how exactly you liberated us?
dont generalize like that. i saw a report on our CNN, interviewing one of the volunteers willing to fight for iraq - he said his brother was in iraq. and i dont think thats such a minority. btw - are you sure that the pro-saddam outsiders in iraq are more brainwashed than the anti-saddam outsiders (coalition troops)? noone knows what was told to british and american soldiers... im not willing to support WWIII.
interesting point, gro. dont forget about the other contries, besides usa, uk and germany, which tend to have fewer and fewer "free" people. iirc, 5% in brazil have more than 50% of the richness. my dad's a teacher, and just by that, we are part of the country's "elite". now imagine how many, and how rich, are the not-elite OT: are chinese and n. korean regimes considered democracies?
those someone else approached us with a fair deal. So did the other side but their conditions were unacceptable. (Had Pasic agreed to give up what he had seized 2 years earlier, we would be fighting on the same side not on opposite) We simply wanted our own back. It is a pity that it blinded our politicians on the matter that you have to bid on the side which will win. They werent any good statesmen, unfortunatelly.
Ermmm nope, thats not what I said at all. I was just giving my viewpoint on what heartc was claiming. But since you ask, yes it will give the Iraqis I feel a greater sense of freedom. No country has completely unrestricted freedom, it would be impossible to govern and police. -glas-
It's funny you mention that, cos i wrote it without the 'sense' in the first place and when i re-read before submitting, i knew something was missing -glas-
if you didnt have that weaponry to guarantee your people wont die, the last 4-5 wars wouldnt have happened... disbalance always brings to suffery
my theory is that they are late with development with approx 100 years. They are now at the nationalistic stage we were through in the end of XIX- start of XX cent. They at that time couldnt even organize widespread national movement.
I dont know about that, but better weaponry definitely eases suffering. Would you prefer wars were fought using conventional bombs like in WWII? Btw, the last 4-5 wars (for the UK) would take us back to WWII and earlier. I would hardly say we had the better weaponry at the outset of that war. If you take away the current conflict and your feelings about it, has the last 4-5 conflicts Britain have been involved in been unjustified or avoidable? I think not. -glas-
last 4-5 US wars, sry or rather the US wars since the fall of USSR yes, if you had faced the expectaion for the same death toll as the enemy, thoughts about "legitimate wars" and "tough choice about liberating people with force" etc wouldnt have appeared at all in your mind
All of the negative aspects of this war have appeared in my mind. In fact, they do so on a daily basis. Future terrorist attacks. Britain being drawn in to a nightmarish 'Vietnam' scenario. This action rupturing the fragile Middle East. The massive problems that will start only if we manage to get rid of Saddam with the diversity of religious beliefs. Im also sure the person who made the decision that the UK would stand with the US during this is only too aware of all of this. However he is also aware of much more than we are, and he has based his decision to go in there on that. -glas-
imtrying to tell you: his decision would have been different if the expected casualties werent a few tens or maybe hundreds (thanx to your sheer technology advantage), but maybe 10 000 or 50 000. This is why most countries dont start wars everyday.
Nope, other sources. I read some studies on subject another day. I'll list my sources now on. IIRC Food For Oil programme started only after 1996. 500.000 children were dead before that. And it hasn't helped very much. Between years 1960-1990 wellfaring in Iraq took huge leaps. IE. Death rate of under 5 year olds declined from 171 to 50 children of 1000. Increase in number of women able to read was over 60% in that timeframe. After 1991 most schools have been closed and situation has went worse by far. Childbed deathrate has doubled. Death rate of under 5 year old children has increased 2,5 fold. (Source: Unicef statistics) Sanctions have hurt mostly poor people. Around 500.000 children have died from resulting malnutrition 1991-1996. (Source. Center of Economic and Social Rights) Ofcourse Saddam dragged them to current situation by invading Kuwait. But UN response can be still questioned. BTW: About Al-Jazeera. You should check some of their news and draw your conclusions. IMHO it offers most neutral view without preset opinions. Mostly just viewing situations and not commenting rights or wrongs.
Hehe..that bit complex actually. Let's take finland for example. First we were part od Sweden, then part of Russia. Our language relatives lived all around northern russia to the urals. I'll add more complexity to this by saying that Scandinavian Wikings founded Novgorod. Now who has right to claim and what? History is no mean to say something is yours. If you go back in time this "owning" thing will seem pretty ridicilous. IE. Basically we could attack russia upto Urals and say. "Hey we take what is rightfully ours" Russians could also conquer finland claiming same thing. Then could come swedes and takeover both nations again claiming same thing.
